Every Vote Counts

With election season wrapping up, I wanted to draw your attention to one of our local elections. It’s common for people to neglect to vote or possibly just not research their voting options and justify either action with the thought that one vote doesn’t really matter. However, we just had a state senate seat decided by eleven votes. Thousands of ballots cast and it came down to fewer than eleven votes. Lives changed, and potentially even the trajectory of our state, by just a handful of ballots.

In life, our choices are our votes. Sometimes it’s easy to think an individual choice doesn’t really have much impact. Cheating a little on the diet, turning in an assignment just past a deadline, easing up a little on our effort “just this once” or cutting a corner here or there, we justify giving in because we think one single, seemingly small choice doesn’t count.

In life and elections, we never know when that vote will count. Sometimes, a single choice can change everything. Furthermore, those votes and choices are cumulative. It’s natural to downplay any single ballot or decision, but they add up quickly. Neglecting a choice or cognitively making the wrong decision in this moment makes it easier to do it again in the next, conditioning ourselves to downplay the importance of the “votes” we cast.

Live your life as if every vote counts. Because they do.

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