Why am I in Texas?

Me in Austin by the capitol on my first day of volunteering.

Last January, I decided to move to Texas.

As I've written previously, this was not a small decision for me. Unfortunately, my current lease had just started, so I was unable to actually move until a couple of weeks ago.

The past two weeks have been a lot of errands-running. I only arrived with a single carload of things. I had some boxes of clothes shipped here, but didn't have a stick of furniture. I still don't even have a table. It turns out there's a lot of life-management to deal with when you move halfway across the continent.

Today, though, I finally was able to act on my purpose for uprooting myself from the NYC area I've known my entire life. I attended my first event for the Texas Democratic Party.

I'm sorry to say that until now I've been pretty lazy about my liberalism. I've never volunteered for a campaign or party. I have not even been an active donator. My attitude has always been that as long as I have the "right" opinions and show up to vote, everything would take care of itself.

Obama several times paraphrased MLK by saying "the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice". I naively ate this declaration up. It encouraged complacency and inaction. Why do anything when history will take care of itself?

Last November proved that to be a lie. The arc of history does not bend. It does nothing on its own. We choose to bend it, or we choose to let others bend it. When we sit back, others will bend it away from justice.
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This is an odd age for me to get into politics. People generally become active younger, in college, or older, post-retirement. Its easy to guess this is about when people have time. People my age are generally starting/growing a family or advancing their career. Personally, I'd love to be spending my free time on boardgame design. But I have a good-paying job (at least for now, as my company is being sold to a competitor), and no dependents. So, regardless of age, I am in a position to give my time to this.

While it was a fluke of the calendar, I think it makes sense that the day I arrived in Texas was the day I turned 36. It was a fitting day to start a new life with a new direction.

So what did I do today? First I attended a training session on how to use a voter canvassing app. Then I canvassed 20 houses in Austin. It took about three hours altogether. Was this a huge contribution to the fight to save my country from the mess it has gotten itself into? No, this was barely anything at all. But it was infinitely more than I'd ever done before. And it feels good to contribute even a little effort.

There are 359 days until the next election. It isn't a presidential year, but here's what's at stake:

• All 435 House of Representatives seats
• 33 Senate seats (8 held by Republicans)
• 36 Governorships (26 held by Republicans)
• 46 State Legislatures

I'm going to be ramping up my involvement. I hope to canvass at least as many houses as I did today each week. I also hope to contribute in other ways, using my skills in analytics tools. We won't win every office. But each one we do will help us save lives.

Most of you are not in my position. You have responsibilities that can't be set aside and wouldn't move across the country even if you could. That's perfectly fine. But I invite you to look up your local state party's website. Find out what events they are holding and just show up to one. Like I said, today I spent about three hours, one of which was training. Do you think you could give that much once a month? Just a couple hours a month? Give it a try. You can always stop later.

But, please, give it a try now. Don't wait 11 months, when it will be too late. Every time you turn on the morning news or see a tweet about a new terrible thing the president is doing, let that be a reminder to you: you can do something about it. Join me in getting off the bench.