Growing up on Mercer Island, I have lived a very privileged life. I’ve never had to worry about getting enough food to eat, or whether or not I was safe going outside, and I certainly have never had to worry about getting a good education. And as a result, like so many others, I became apathetic to the problems faced by the world around me.

Government and the political process always seemed to me, a shadowy other. Bureaucrats made far-removed decisions behind closed doors, and little of it really affected my day-to-day life. Sure I was for plenty of things, and if anyone asked me I would defend certain policy positions to the last, but I never did anything about them. I told myself this was because there was nothing I could do. The political machine, in my mind, was too vast and complex for me to make any meaningful impact.

But I think the real reason I sat by and passively let others govern for me was because, in my quietly contained bubble of privilege, I knew that none of it would really affect me. The problem of race and poverty and education certainly seemed important, but I knew that regardless of what the bureaucrats decided, I was going to be fine. I was a Mercer Island kid after all, and what did I have to worry about?

Recently, however, I showed up at the Washington state capitol building for a political protest. I was there primarily for a civics assignment, engage in local or state government, and I had planned on standing to the side for a polite amount of time, taking a selfie to prove I went, and immediately leaving. But then the speeches began. The rally was for improved K-12 state funding, something that in my mind seemed pretty abstract.

But I quickly became aware, as the first speech began, that this was far more than an abstract issue of budget management. This was peoples’ lives. Countless school districts, and from them, countless students, due to race or zip code couldn’t afford to make up what the state was withholding; they were slipping through the cracks. And when they came together, fathers and daughters and teachers and mothers and rallied, it was because they could no longer afford to be passive. Because for them, government wasn’t some shadowy other, it was the determining factor of their livelihood.

As we marched into the offices of Sen. Lisa Wellman and Reps. Judy Clibborn and Tana Senn, I began to realize that democracy wasn’t something that just exists outside of us. It is not some shadowy other, but rather an action that we may take every time we see a world we do not agree with. An action that many of us have the privilege of ignoring. But these things matter. These problems facing our cities, our states and our country matter. And every day I hear people complain about them, and rarely do I see people take even the slightest action to fix them.

So for those of you who are dissatisfied, angry, scared, or even hopeless with the current state of our nation, I urge you to take action. Volunteer, protest, rally, write a letter and vote. And for those of you, who like myself have had the luxury of political apathy, I remind you that you are in a position to do good for others, and by remaining passive you abuse your privilege.

Politics is the ultimate act of empathy, and it is one that I strongly believe we could all benefit from trying. I would like to end with the words of Margaret Mead, who reminds us to “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” So get out there, and change the world.

Kaes Vanderspek

Mercer Island