Before you go and vote

could you please at least think about others as well as yourself? It might be too much to ask you to actually research the issues but could you at least think about what might be best for the next generation and the generations after that.

I have a new great-nephew by my "niece"/goddaughter. Yes, I am genuinely delighted but that delight is tinged with a deep concern. I look at the very young passing me in the shopping centre and wonder what the world will be like for them if they reach my age. Perhaps it is something that people have done for centuries but I suspect more thought is given to it now.

Brother Cat and  his then partner (now deceased) and Middle Cat and her partner made the conscious decision to have just two children. Only if the second born had been a twin or more would they have had three or more. Their decision was based on the philosophy of "replace yourselves" and "there are enough people in the world".  

It is not the sort of thing that everyone agrees with. I have a distant cousin who has six children. She might have gone on to have had more - and homeschool them - if she had not been given medical orders to stop bearing children. They are lovely young adults now and they are all contributing to society but I still wonder at having had six children. 

And now young J... has arrived I really do wonder what the world will be like for him. Will he have a world I would recognise? There might be some things the same or more developed. There will be things I do not even recognise. 

What has all this to do with voting? I am thinking of all the people I have had conversations with in the past few weeks. Almost all of them are talking in ways which suggest they are voting for themselves and for their own interests. It does not surprise me. 

Human beings are essentially selfish beings. Yes, there is that mother instinct and that is the one which ensures the survival of the human race. Even that does not exist in all mothers. There are a very few genuinely selfless people who take risks to save the lives of others without any thought of rewards but they are rare. Most of us, even when we believe we are thinking of others, think of ourselves too. 

I cannot help wondering what the election result would be like if all those who voted did so with others in mind. I suspect it would be very different. The candidates would probably be very different too.