I have heard talk from politicians and pundits for many years now about how the electorate needs to be motivated to get out and vote in the presidential and midterm elections.  I’ll bet that many of you have heard those comments too.  They say things like; voters did not go to the polls because there were no major candidates or issues on the ballot, many voters feel like ‘my vote won’t matter anyway’ and so do not bother to vote, voters are completely frustrated with what is happening – or not happening – in Washington so they protested by just staying at home, the Democrats/Republicans did not do the things they needed to do to motivate their base to get out and vote, and the list goes on.

Are they serious?  Whether or not you are a sports fan I’ll bet that at some time in your life you have heard someone say things about their favorite professional sports teams like; those guys are paid a lot of money – the coach shouldn’t have to motivate them to play hard and give it their all during games, in order to overcome your ___________ (you fill in the blank) problem you have to want to overcome it; without that, all of the encouragement and prodding from support groups will be meaningless.

And how many of us as parents have at some point said things to our children like; if you want to be the best at something, you have to be willing to work to achieve it?  Or, even made less lofty statements like; if you want to be a ___________ (again, you fill in the blank) you have to believe in yourself and continue to work toward that goal no matter what others might say to try to discourage you.

All of these things are about motivation with the key being self-motivation.  My point is that you hold the key and not someone else.  Others can help to motivate us by encouraging us, they can try to dilute our personal motivation by discouraging us, or at worst – we can lack the quality of self-motivation and fail to even try to achieve anything unless we are pushed to do so by some outside force.

Whether we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, the right to vote was not just handed to some of us.  Instead, it was achieved through hard-fought battles by our predecessors some of whom even died during this struggle.  To treat the right to vote as if it is something shallow and meaningless by failing to regularly vote unless we are constantly prodded to do so by politicians and pundits during election cycles is shameful.