HAGERTY: Follow your instincts

I didn’t care much about politics before this year. I thought government was too predictable and civic participation was completely useless. I didn’t vote in local elections or the primaries. Despite my general complacency, I liked the idea of a woman president so I donated $5 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to show my support. Making that small, symbolic donation manifested itself in an onslaught of phone calls from Clinton’s campaign office. It was so annoying. Throughout autumn, they called me about once a week to hound me about canvassing in New Hampshire. I ignored most of the calls.

I didn’t know how strongly I felt about electing a woman president until Clinton lost. Sure, she was a deeply flawed candidate. But she was the most qualified person to run for president in history and she lost to a misogynistic reality TV star. When the results came in on election night, I immediately thought about the young women I mentor. Most of them are in middle school and the next four years will be some of the most formative years of their lives. They will come of age in an America where the president is incapable of being an adequate role model. I found this infuriating and unacceptable. Like so many other people affected by the election, my instincts pushed me to do something.

I wrote a Facebook status. I turned it into an op-ed. I emailed my school newspaper. That op-ed soon became the inspiration for this column and this column has changed my path as an undergraduate student.

I became something I never thought I’d be — involved. I started living more intentionally. Every day I think about how I can be a better role model to the young women I mentor in after-school programs and over the summer at a camp in Vermont. I’m well aware that they creep on my Instagram, so I decided to start thinking about the content I put out there and how I can be a positive force in their lives.

Whatever your motivation is, now more than ever, it is important to lean in and support causes you care about. Getting started is the hard part. I started by picking something that bothered me about the world then trying to do what I could to change it. I decided to tackle the lack of gender diversity in the news media. For a time in the country’s leading traditional news media, roughly 20 percent of op-eds are written by women. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. In 2014, only three of the nation’s 25 largest newspapers are led by women. Those statistics are lame. I want to even the scale.

I used to think that blindly following instincts was a really bad idea. It surely has the potential to be. But for me, this year, I learned the importance of going with my gut and following my heart. It’s genuinely made my life so much brighter and exponentially more interesting. I’m on a path that I never thought I’d be on and on this path I’ve met so many wonderful people. Just by taking small steps to engage a little bit more with my community, I’ve been availed to a world of opportunity.

It’s never too late to champion a cause you care about and it’s OK if you find your passion later than your peers. We each possess a unique skill set we can use to contribute to society, so don’t hold back. The world is a pretty grim place right now. There’s a lot of be unsatisfied with. Now more than ever we need writers, scientists, artists, environmentalists and passionate people to step up and lead. As the Lorax once said “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

I feel guilty about ignoring the Clinton campaign’s plea for canvassers in New Hampshire. It’s a combination of guilt, personal responsibility and conviction that pushed me to become a columnist for The Daily Free Press (and soon the editorial page editor). Taking the first step wasn’t easy, but it was well worth it.

To all my friends who encouraged me this year, thank you. Mia, Maria and Michelle, thank you for always making time to provide feedback my column before I sent it into my fabulous editors at FreeP. You guys have made me better and I’m incredibly grateful.

Finally, to all the girls and young women reading this, especially if you went to Camp Kiniya or if you’re a “Media Girl:” “never doubt that you are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”