Whether election day is around the corner or you have at least 4 years before the next one (assuming no impeachment or other creative ways to get someone out of office), the idea of having your vote be the difference in who wins or loses can be terrifying. Therefore, having a Fear of Voting just makes sense for so many reasons. Knowing your singular opinion could be the difference between a charismatic leader or a tyrant assuming control over a city, state, or country is a lot to consider. Knowing your opinion might create a rift in a friendship, relationship or casual conversation with the person sitting on the bus next to you is alarming. Of course, more than likely, your vote is completely meaningless. It will be one of thousands that has no actual impact on the final result. Still, if you ignore the numbers, it’s a lot of responsibility.
Four More Years of a Fear of Voting
Unless your political stance is not having a political stance, there might be a number of reasons why you favour one side of the spectrum to another. As someone without any political bias, I have no idea what those sides entail but just go with me on this one. You might be aggressively right-winged or left-winged which means something different. You could be a closet communist. Or a nationalist which also means something different. With so many political opinions to be bombarded with, how do you know which side to choose? The answer is easy. Among all of the noise and clutter, seek out one or two ideas you believe in. It could be something like a politician who is willing to reduce poverty. Or a politician who wants to increase minimum wage. Or even the politician with the funniest name who also wants to reduce crime. Politics are easy once you find a cause to sort of support.
No political landscape would be complete without some drama. If your politician wins, you feel a sense of pride for about 3 weeks until a scandal drops. Usually, it’s something cataclysmic. Someone discovers controversial pictures of the politician wearing a baseball cap of a rival team from 30 years ago at space camp and posts them across all social media platforms. Sometimes it can be even worse. You begin to question your political views. You wonder if it was a mistake voting for someone whose campaign slogan was “Sure, I know what I’m doing”. It just looked so good on those bumper stickers. In most cases, even when a politician is elected into office, there are some people who still disagree with the outcome of the vote. You will never hear the end of the ‘space camp 2020’ debacle.
Conducting a Recount on Your Fear of Voting
So what do you do when all of your friends and family are on one side of the fence and you’re either on the polar opposite side or didn’t even get invited into the same yard? It’s okay to have a differentiating opinion. Staying true to yourself is more important than being persuaded to vote against something you believe in. Conventional wisdom suggests people need to transform into being a sheep for every decision to remain popular in the eyes of society. Don’t be a sheep. Let the haters hate and just be yourself. – T Swift, circa 1948.
It’s difficult writing about a controversial topic with the hopes of completely undermining it yet respecting it at the same time. It’s like what we saw in the Fear of the Glass Ceiling post. Walking a fine line between “please stop talking” and “how are you still talking?” can be a challenge for even the most seasoned writers. If you disagree with anything you’ve read here today, be sure to let us know in the comments or in a friendly message on Facebook.
Since it’s also relevant right now, here’s a link to the new Things I Fear book available on Amazon and a few other places online. You’ll have to go find those on your own though since I can only do so much shameless self-promoting in one post.
