My husband,
two kids and I moved to the Dayton area a year and a half ago from Chicago, and
as a newly inducted Ohio voter, I felt the weight of my vote this election. I took this enormous responsibility to heart
and spent most of the election in limbo, quietly listening, actively not
listening at other times, and just genuinely trying to find answers to lead me
to a decision. I tried to block out the
obnoxious noise of the election to focus on the election.
But there is
a stigma attached to indecisiveness, especially in the arena of politics. I’ve come to learn that being undecided does
not show thoughtful consideration in the eye of most voters; it shows naivety, gullibility
or lack of intelligence and awareness.
Being
decided on a vote, on the other hand, has a warm, fuzzy feeling attached to it. Being committed to an answer leaves us
feeling confident and strong in our convictions. It implies that we’ve done our
homework and have gathered all the information needed. It is a perceived stamp of intelligence, and
as tempting as it was to join this comfort, I remained in voter’s purgatory for
nearly all of the election, cringing at most of the information I vowed to
ingest with contemplation.
My being an
undecided voter caught the attention of The
New Yorker magazine that sent a photographer to be embedded in our house
for four straight days to investigate what in the world causes a voter to be
undecided. I was an anomaly—an undecided
voter is one thing, but an undecided OHIO voter? Alert the media!
I teach
critical thinking skills to my English composition students at Sinclair
Community College. Students look as
though they were kicked in the guts as I tell them they must listen to the
other side of their argument before they can write a sound, level-headed
argument essay. I recently asked a student, “Why is it so hard listening to
people who don’t think the same as you?” His answer was alarming: “Because they’re wrong. That’s a fact.”
I can most
certainly understand this nineteen-year-old student, as I am quite certain I
had the same stubborn stance in my younger days. However, it made me look at
the election process in the same way—we often come to conclusions—a vote—long
before the facts are presented to us. We
skew these opinions and convictions into facts and truths, when in reality they
are personal attachments, beliefs and our egos.
It takes a
release of our egos to be critical thinkers who challenge ourselves to see
beyond our own self-interests and allow opposing views to make their way in
without infuriating us. That is not to
say we should agree with everything we hear.
But we do tend to listen to and embrace views that validate our own
thinking, and we rally against anything that steps outside this cozy circle. It is much easier and fun to show allegiance
to one side and look for evidence to further prove the other side is wrong and
maybe even ridiculous and moronic. It is
much more difficult to open the slammed doors in our brains, letting even
off-kilter points of view make their way into our consideration. It demands we think and not simply comfortably
follow.
It’s a dirty
little secret that I was undecided for so long.
I would politely sit through pep talks from liberal friends about how
Obama is amazing and Romney is nothing but a money-hungry jerk who wants to
make the rich richer. On the converse, I
would respectfully sit through spiels from conservative friends who touted
Romney’s plan and warned that Obama is nothing but a socialist who wants
everyone to be on welfare.
Isn’t there
any gray area in politics? Maybe Romney
could be right about this and Obama right about that? Does it have to be that only one candidate
can be absolutely right about everything and the other candidate is absolutely
wrong about everything and is nothing but downright horrible, ridiculous and
vindictive? Does life really deal in such absolutes?
Now that the
election is over, we all have to be okay with the outcome. If your guy didn’t
win, take a good look at the guy who did win because he is now your guy. If your candidate didn’t become the
president, you have a choice. You can
either go into the next four years with the outlook of “He will do nothing
right ever” or you can open your mind, sit back and be pleasantly surprised to
find that the person running our country will do something right. Try to find one thing he might not mess
up. Start with that.
