I’m not going to sugar coat this – the cards we’ve been dealt are unfair. For many of us, this is the first time we get to use our voting privilege. I don’t know about you, but I was not expecting to be given such a tough choice. If you are someone who knows for sure who you are going to vote for in November, fantastic, but if you are like me—someone who is so uncomfortable with the choices given you almost don’t want to go vote—you came to the right place. Simply avoiding checking off who you believe is “best fit” to run our country for the sake of pretending this election doesn’t exist is not the right thing to do, though it may be tempting. With that said, going in to vote and carelessly checking off a name to say you voted defeats the purpose of our privilege as well. At times like these, it is vital we take a good, hard look at the issues at hand and decide to do what is best for our country.

Our generation has been given an immense responsibility to choose the fate of our country as well as our futures. I know what you are probably thinking, and yes, our parents’ and grandparents’ votes do matter; however, who does it matter to the most? We are the ones who will go through the most changes throughout the next 4 years. Those in our age group are either beginning college, in college, just graduated, are in graduate school or are on the search for their first adult job at the moment. Just a few short years from now, all of us will have gone through all of that, beginning our careers and maybe even beginning a family. Our lifestyles are likely to change come the new presidency, given that we have had the same president for most of our teenage lives, wherein who was president didn’t necessarily matter to the majority of us. Now that we are older and (somewhat) wiser, we cannot waste our opportunity to make a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.

I’m not here to tell you who is the better choice to vote for. I am simply here to inform you of the chance you have to make our country better. Do your research and see who best fits not only your beliefs but also the beliefs of our country. Choose the candidate who you believe will get done for our country what needs to be done. It’s as simple as that.