Job Number One --  Self Care

Before you can be of any value to anyone else, you must take care of yourself, first.  You cannot help yourself or anyone else if you are living in fear, stress, and desperation.   You cannot get poor enough to make anyone else wealthy.   You cannot get sick enough to make anyone else healthy.   You can't bet dumb enough to make anyone else smart.  

Commercial airlines demonstrate the take-care-of-yourself-first  principle every day.    Prior to take off, the stewardess will demonstrate what to do if, in case of an emergency and the oxygen masks are deployed.   She say, "Put your own mask on first and then take care of your children."  

So fill your own cup first, but not from the ego perspective that I'm better than you, but from the perspective of "Do thyself no harm because we are all in this together."

Can We Get Real for a Moment.   

We don't vote for the best candidate.   We vote on this basis:   What's in it for me?    We vote for the candidate that we believe is most like ourselves.  We vote for the candidate who tells us what we want to hear.   We vote for the candidate who tells us  that he or she will run his or her political office like we would if we were in that office.   

We vote for the candidate who will dole out money from the public treasury in our direction, and hopefully some of that money will make its way into our pockets.  

We vote on emotions and not on intellect.   If we thoroughly examined the evidence, issues such as forced motherhood (abortion) and stem-cell research would be non issues.   We'd have to admit that humans really don't know much about anything.   

For example, we have no idea what a human being really is, or where we came from, or if life begins at all.   Perhaps birth and death are simply changes in form of us as eternal beings.   Are we our physical bodies.  If not, what are we?   We don't know why we are here on Earth, or what happens after death.    Are we really separate from God?   What is God, anyway?   Nobody knows any of these things with provable certainty.   We don't know thousands of thing that human claim to know.   

So let's stop kidding ourselves.    We look out into the external world and see only a  few drops of water in the immense and timeless ocean of Earth life.   We see only  a miniscule part of the physical portion of the immense external world.   What we see is the mirror of our beliefs.   We don't vote for the best candidate.   We vote for an image of ourselves.    We vote for the alter ego of ourselves which we project onto the candidate that we like the most or hate the least.  

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How To Decide 
What Is Your Best Interest

So now that we have a touch of reality, let's ask the question,  "When you cast you ballot, what is in your best interest."   Both sides tell you that they are better at delivering what you want than their opposition.  

But is what you believe you want actually in your own best interest.   For example, if a candidate says he's in favor of forced motherhood (opposed to reproductive rights)  and you say,  "Yes, I'll vote for him."    What if also intends to secretly steal you money?   Is it still in your best interest to vote for him.   

How to Cast You Vote where It Will Make a Difference:    In terms of issues, it seems wise to cast your vote where it will make a difference.  Let me explain this by analogy.   In a medical emergency, such as a military conflict, the doctors will by-pass  two types of  injured soldiers -- those  who will live no matter what they (the doctors) do and those who will die no matter what the doctors do.   They will focus on those who will live if treated and die if not treated.    

This same principle applies to your vote in a political election.  Based on the present trends and the lack of significant, competent opposition, it seems imminent that the fundamentalist Christian leaders are going to succeed in overturning Roe V Wade.    On the other side of the coin, it's inevitable that the gay rights are going to win equal marriage rights.   Thus to cast your vote based on either of these two issues is to throw your vote away.  Why?  Because the outcome of both issues are already known within a very high degree of probability.   

Back to "What's In It for Me"    The other thing to consider is that neither of these two issue is going to take care of you or your family.   Neither of these two issues is going to help you pay your bills, feed your family, or take care of your health needs.   Neither of these issues is going to Reverse Global Warming.   

If you are voting on these two issues or on any other highly emotion issue that is not personally and directly about you, you are voting for someone else's best interest and not your own.   Let me give you some examples from the election of George Bush.  .