I know some of you personally. That is why I’m writing this letter. Because I care about you. I want good things for you. Sometimes it helps to hear the advice of someone in your life that you didn’t know you needed to hear. The unsolicited variety.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. You need to vote in this election. I know you say you’re not “political”. You tell me that you’re confused. Your ears and eyes pick up bits and pieces of what the candidates are doing and saying but your life so busy you haven’t had time to process it all. You brain is full of other things that feel more important to you. Your kids. Your job (or lack thereof). Your spouse. Trying to follow all the Covid-19 restrictions and maybe worrying about the health of those who are not.

You’re doing the best you can to get through each day. You’ve got a good heart. And you are smart. And you can think for yourself.

But. The man who is elected President in another couple of weeks is going to impact your life. Whether you like it or not.

I know you care about education, for example. You want your kids and your friends kids, and your kids friends and all the kids you don’t even know to have access to a great education.

I also know you care about health care. That’s the number 1 concern in American voters minds right now. You may have have health insurance. Maybe you don’t. If you do, you might think you’re paying too much for your premiums. Or you think your prescriptions or your co-pays are too high. Or maybe, God forbid, you or a loved one were surprised by an astronomically high medical bill because insurance only paid so much. And you have no idea how you’re going to pay that bill. Or you don’t have health insurance at all. So you are not getting the routine care you need. So you have to get yourself to an emergency room and hope it isn’t too late to get the care you need to get better.

I also know you, like the rest of us, want our country’s leaders to do all they can to combat Covid-19. You’re troubled by seeing the cases and the deaths from this monster climb each day. You want to get back to a time where masks are not required everywhere you go. You want this to be dealt with so you and your loved ones can get back to “normal”. You’re just plain sick and tired of it all.

I suspect you also care about our climate. You may not see yourself as educated in scientific matters but maybe you don’t like seeing news coverage of whales dead on the beach from pollution in our waters. You don’t like that this summer was oppressively hot where you live. You don’t think it’s right that big companies pollute our waters to the point where in some places in this country the water is not safe to drink.

I am certain that you worry about how Americans are treating each other these days too. The hatred, the violence, the injustices. The self-righteousness that gets spewed on the daily by extremists on both sides of the political aisle. Everyone thinks they are right but none of us actually are. Everyone seems to be distracted by their own opinions.

I urge each of you to give some serious thought to what you see around you and in this country as a whole and decide what it is you think ought to change for the better. Maybe it’s the topics I mentioned already: education, health care, climate change, violence. Or maybe it’s that and more.

Give yourself the courtesy of thinking about which Presidential candidate is more likely to bring about the changes you believe need to happen going forward. Or the one who you believe will attempt to do so to the best of their ability.

Make a plan. If you’re lucky like I am and live in a state where your ballot is mailed to you, sit down and fill that thing out. Bring it to your nearest drop off place. If you don’t, find out where your nearest polling place is and if and when they are open for early voting. Or look at your calendar and think through what 11/3/20 will look like. When can you get there to vote? After work, before work? Or maybe in the middle of the day, because you are unemployed because of Covid-19?

Then follow through. Don’t let yourself be that person who didn’t exercise their right as an American to vote.

Because I know that you know America is messed up right now. And I hope that you also know, as I do, that the only way to expect anything to change at this point is to vote.

***Header image courtesy of https://www.pine.edu/current-students/student-life/student-senate/get-out-the-vote