Open your eyes, so you can see what happens next

Why do we vote? I knew before pulling that lever this morning that my vote was almost completely inconsequential (for a completely different reason than my pulling that lever during the primaries was inconsequential) and yet, I woke up an hour earlier than usual just to made sure that I did it anyway. So why did I do it, and why am I so proud?

I think we all know that an election will never come down to one vote (despite what silly movies will have us believe), but our individual votes are much more important than determining an election. Today is a day that we say, as a country, that we are going to stand up together and take a vote on what we feel is best for our lives and our neighbor's lives, even if our opinions differ. We live in a country of very differing viewpoints, and that's one of the things that makes this country great. But even with these varying viewpoints, we pick a day and say, collectively, we are going to make a decision as to what is best for all of us. Your individual vote is so much more than individual, it is a statement of belonging, of loving your country so much that you choose to be part of it, no matter what the outcome. And this collective, despite scare tactic mumblings of communism, is why our country succeeds. United we stand, divided we fall. Or, in a more recent social context: Live together, die alone.