First Time Voting

We, Newtown High Schools’ class of 2016, can’t seem to grow up fast enough. Someone’s accepted to another college every few minutes, we drive ourselves to work after school, using an ungodly amount of our salaries to pay for gas—we’re wavering on the brink of the unknown, about to topple.

Most of us seniors are going to fall into that unknown on our eighteenth birthday, when we’ll be expected to vote for our country’s next president. But the closer voting day comes, the more I realize I have absolutely no idea which way I’ll vote, let alone which of the presidential candidates I want in the White House (if any).

As a kid born into a conservative family and raised in a liberal community, my own political ideologies have been muddled, at best. I’ve always felt torn between the left and the right—I can never entirely tell whether my political beliefs are genuinely mine or whether they belong to those around me. It’s hard to know, especially in a time when over 60% of Americans end up in the same party their parents belong to.

Just to be clear, my goal is not to entirely resist others’ influence on my beliefs. That’s completely impossible. Even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t bother to try. My family and community have played an enormous role in forming who I am, how I think, what I believe, and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. But that doesn’t change the fact that I want each belief I hold to be mine, beliefs I have intentionally decided to hold, rather than being something I accept.

I don’t pretend that the outcome of any election pivots around my vote. But I still want to judge every candidate, each political idea or thought I come into contact with for myself, against my own morals and experience.

Image Courtesy of politicspa.com