One of the things that is driving me mad in this election is how little importance my generation has been placing on voting. I saw the other day a comment on social media that given the choice between a debate and a baseball game, the baseball game would have a larger impact on that individual’s life. My heart churned.
It breaks my heart that our generation is not more involved in the understanding of what is happening our country.
Let me begin, before going much further, to say I am not going to put up a political backing in this post. I do not think that is important. What I think is the most important thing to write at this moment is how I think you should vote.
There are three different criteria you should take to your voting booth. I am not the smartest man in the world, so these may not be all-inclusive. At the same time, I think if you take these three things to the voters booth, you will find yourself ready to make a decision. This could probably be chalked up to helping with life decisions as well.
1. You should be open-minded. I cannot count the times I have heard a comment from either side of the political party and watched that same comment get taken two different ways. Usually, when you take a comment with extreme bias, you take it the wrong way. Try to water down your biased and maybe we will see truth before we see what we want to be truth.
2. You should have all the information. I am talking about ALL of it. Not just one side of the information. Of course, if you struggle with number one, you are not going to do very well at gathering all the information because you are not going to retain it that well unless it helps your bias. When I was in college, I had to write an argumentative paper for a large portion of my grade. Our professor did something extremely brilliant in my mind. He made us take up a position to fight against our true position. We were then to write a paper on that position, fighting our true position. We indeed fought with ourselves. He challenged us not to fight opinions with facts, because, let us be honest, facts do not change opinions; well-constructed arguments do.
3. You should try to be honest. Let us get real for a moment. You cannot see into the future. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Neither can the candidates. We have an opportunity to latch on to a vision that was cast for us by our candidates, nothing more. Promises will be broken, and legislation will not be passed. But if we are not honest with what is true, then we are in a whole heap of trouble. No matter the outcome of this election, the truth is that God runs this country (If you cringed at that thought, go back to criteria 1 and 2 please). Our lives should be overwhelmingly confident in that fact. If you do not believe in the God thing, that is fine, but think about how, no matter what happens in politics, the world continues to spin on.
Go vote. Vote well. At the end of the day, if your candidate loses, no matter what side of the party you are on, pray for our leaders. Pray hard. They need all of the help they can get in such troubling times. As do we.
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Food for thought: Also, one last note, if your candidate loses, what good does it do anyone complaining about how it “could have been?? Please leave it at the door. That will not do anyone any good.
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