I haven’t always thought that it mattered that much whether or not I voted. Only recently have I really started thinking more about it. The more I learn about history, and how much people have given for this country, the more I feel so much in debt to them. The more I want to do what I can, as small as it may seem.

Last year, author David McCullough, came to a BYU forum and spoke about our founding fathers. I would quote the whole speech if I could, but since I can’t here is a link. He makes a very good point about our ability to make a difference.

One of the hardest, and I think the most important, realities of history to convey to students or readers of books or viewers of television documentaries is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. Any great past event could have gone off in any number of different directions for any number of different reasons….Very often we are taught history as if it were predetermined, and if that way of teaching begins early enough and is sustained through our education, we begin to think that it had to have happened as it did. We think that there had to have been a Revolutionary War, that there had to have been a Declaration of Independence, that there had to have been a Constitution, but never was that so. In history, chance plays a part again and again. Character counts over and over. Personality is often the determining factor in why things turn out the way they do.

We really can make a difference. I hate to think that my vote doesn’t make a difference… I believe it does. It makes a difference.

I was rereading Moroni’s letter to Pahoran, in Alma chapter 60. I used to wonder sometimes why it was left in the Book of Mormon, because Moroni’s accusations about Pahoran ended up being unfounded. But reading through it again, it is such a call to duty, to service, to caring not only about ourselves and our own comfort, but those of other people whom we may not even see. It really hit hard reading it again. I have spent a whole lot of my life being content with my own contentment-if that makes sense. Wow, I really think this was left in for us to realize what can happen if we feel like we don’t need to participate in society.

I want to thank all of you, Connor, Ben, et al, that got this topic started. It has been a good wake-up call to me.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead