Let’s look at why voting is an emotionally intelligent exercise. Voting is a privilege and more than just an American thing to do. Choice provides us the ability to discern what we like and what we don’t. So often we hear the comment, “But I didn’t have a choice.” We always have a choice no matter what the circumstance. Argue this as much as you like but we always do even in dangerous situations. Becoming conscious of this is an important part of growing up and becoming responsible for your own life. If you have participated in therapy, self-help workshops or mindfulness awareness, you start by acknowledging that your presence is a choice. How you process the information you receive is also a choice. Choosing to change your behavior is a major life choice and one that shifts your life in many unforeseen respects.
Voting Forces You To Make Choices
Choosing how you vote is also a process that takes thinking and processing the information you are receiving. Are you voting the way your parents do or did? Will you vote the way you always have? Or is this vote shifting your belief systems and challenging old patterns. Do you choose not to vote because you are sick and tired of all the focus placed on politics? Are you choosing to not vote because registering is a pain. You get confused and embarrassed when you need to need to ask for help.
Filling out the ballot is hard and confusing and we never learned how to do this in school. I felt so intimated the first time I walked into a voting booth. I didn’t vote during off years for it didn’t seem important to me. Back in the 60’s, I didn’t learn in school how my life would be affected by the laws the Congress and Senate would pass. So many choices I made that neglected the very privilege I have of choosing what matters not just in my life but the life of my community.
Choosing To Be Emotionally Intelligent
For me, choosing to be emotionally intelligent has shifted my belief system of not being enough. How does this translate into voting or not voting. Did my vote really make a difference? My vote didn’t matter for I was a nobody with little knowledge of how politics really worked. Little did I realize that I have a voice that needs to be counted. My voice never mattered before. When my voice started to resonate with emotional intelligence, so did my mind open to the possibility my vote mattered. I discovered a new respect for myself and delved into informing myself of how I would choose on the matters not only important to me but also my fellow Americans.
Voting is an emotionally intelligent thing to do! You matter and so does your voice and you vote. Watch your self-respect take a leap. Feel the piece inside of you that is so proud that no matter how the vote goes….YOU HAD YOUR VOICE HEARD AND COUNTED!!