The shirt I wore last Tuesday is still hanging in my closet with my "I Voted" sticker on it.
I never posted a selfie, but I've been thinking about that little sticker ever since.
I believe voting is something we get to do every single day.
Not at a polling place.
Not with a ballot.
And not just once every couple of years.
We vote with our choices.
The way we treat people.
The way we spend our time and money.
The things we choose to participate in.
The things we choose to walk away from.
Every intention. Every decision.
It's all a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.
And the beautiful thing is that we don't have to wait for anyone else's permission to start making a difference.
I've often thought it would be fun if we had "I Donated" stickers at FOUND.
Imagine how many of those we'd get to hand out!!
To the people who drop off shoes their children have outgrown.
The families who pick up an extra package of socks or snacks at the store.
The businesses that rally their employees to collect school supplies.
The volunteers who give up a few hours of their week to sort donations or make deliveries.
Ordinary people making ordinary decisions that have an extraordinary impact on someone else's life.
Every one of those decisions is a vote.
A vote for a child to walk into school with shoes that fit.
A vote for a teacher to have the resources to meet a student's needs without reaching into their own pocket.
A vote for a community where people pay attention to one another and do something about what they see.
And those votes add up.
One of the things I've learned through this work is that focusing on what we CAN do has a remarkable way of changing how we see everything else.
The things we can't control begin to fade into the background.
They grow strangely dim…
Our focus changes.
Our mindset changes.
Our conversations change.
Even the things we choose to give our attention to begin to change.
Less fear.
More love.
Less worrying about what everyone else is doing.
More intentionality about what we're doing.
You don't have to have a lot of money.
You don't have to have a lot of time.
You don't have to hold a position of influence or authority.
You just have to recognize that your choices matter.
That what you have to offer matters.
That the people around you matter.
We may not get an "I Voted" sticker for every act of generosity or kindness.
And we certainly don't need one.
Most people don’t want anyone to know…and we respect that.
The reward is so much greater than anything we could stick on a shirt or hang on a wall.
It's knowing that because of a choice we made, someone else's day got a little better.
Their burden got a little lighter. Their future got a little brighter.
That's the kind of change I want to be part of.
And it's a vote we all get to make.
Every single day.
Shea
