I overheard someone say, “I’m just not going to vote this time. My vote never counts anyway.” ...strange logic—because a “non-vote” is guaranteed not to count.

          It’s too easy to become discouraged with the politics of—and everything associated with—the elections. We’re bombarded with statistics and trends reported to us through the media. It’s easy to give those things too much power to influence our perceptions, forgetting that we each control our own destiny and that we can make a difference. 

          As Americans we’ve become discouraged in so many ways, feeling as though we’re being dragged along on a short leash to a place we didn’t really want to go in the first place, resentful of our own seeming inability to stop it—as though we’ve given up and become a nation of gripers instead of doers. And while feeling this way is understandable with the difficult challenges we continue to face, it’s not going to get us anywhere we want to go. In fact, I believe that more harm has been done to our society by our own apathy than any group or politician ever lent.

          I believe that if every American takes his or her right to vote as seriously as our ancestors did—some of them having sacrificed their own freedom or even their lives to attain that right—educating ourselves on current issues and how they can best be dealt with, we’ll be likely to recognize someone who not only grasps these concepts but is best able to attain those goals set by them. Not only will we be helping ourselves, but also we’ll be inspiring a positive legacy of hope and stability for our children and grandchildren.

          Regardless of your belief or affiliation, we all need to take back our own authority to make good things happen.