Please vote for the change you want to see in the world

Whatever your political views and beliefs, please do one thing for you, me and humanity. Please press pause on all media, including your social streams, and take a step back…outside of the online comfort zone you, me and everyone have plugged into.

Take a breath.

It’s urgent for us, as individuals, as human beings, as global citizens, to deeply consider the the long tail of the next election before we vote.

Turn off the passionate, the bullies, the extremists, the conspiracy theorists, the gullible and the misinformed, as well as those who don’t check facts or take the time to evaluate the true impact of them.

Just.take.a.step.back.

Consider and then vote for the world you want 10–20 years from now…not just the person you want to win because of what you and your friends stand for today.

Sometimes we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are…

This is about our children and their children…not just you and me. This is about people who don’t have what we have today. This is about investing in change while fixing what we’ve broken.

This is exactly what many of our friends aren’t thinking about even though they think they are. We’re shouting without listening. We’re sharing without fact-checking. We’re insulting one other without checking ourselves. We scare our friends without regard. We spew hate and are convinced we change minds when in fact, we are tearing relationships apart.

We need hope, not hate. We leadership and insights, not fear and judgement. We have to move forward, yet we are in ways, moving backward. There are real things happening around and to the world that are bigger than any one of us.

I’m actually afraid…But, it’s up to me to change that.

We must think about how the next term and how it will affect the world beyond the next term. We have a moral obligation to make a choice, a tough choice, to do the right thing for others beyond our time. And, this is a choice that should not be influenced and governed by affiliations, emotions and stubbornness. As Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself/herself.”

The future that we want or don’t want will happen because of us. And, the future is not just about our country, but our place among other countries.

Don’t give up. Don’t give in. And please, don’t short our children or their future. They don’t have a voice in this election but they are the one who are most affected by it.

Whether you know or believe it or not…this is a time to be the influencer and not the influenced.