There is no need for anything but optimism in this year’s election. It is of course true that every last one of us stands to lose a considerable amount in the face of the outcome, but regardless it is important to approach the situation from a different mindset. The national government will only determine the way people live if we allow it to do so.

Progress depends only on what people engage themselves with now and when they graduate. Our generation has been faulted for its curious methods of externalizing responsibility. It’s not a condition of our collective disposition, but rather of our upbringing.

As a post-graduate I began working for a group called Green Corps based in Boston. The group works in communities across the country organizing people to act in the interest of their most basic freedoms (clean water, air, land rights, labor rights). There is no waiting on the powers that be, because sincerely, people’s livelihood and well-being are being threatened at a rate that governmental bureaucracy cannot fully address. Democracy and power should not exist only in those we send to Capitol Hill and city hall, though it seems that way from the way we’ve been raised.

In saying that, “depending on who is elected, we will be setting ourselves back” is to, in effect, put a mental block on our capacities as young people to affect necessary social change. We have a choice at the polls, but we have a more important choice to make when it comes to where we place our energies.