Your parent comes home and throws their bag down mumbling about something the current president did or didn’t do. They open the fridge searching for something to eat, “I should never have voted for them!”

You, being a child, have no clue what government debt or social welfare is but everything your parents say—that doesn’t involve putting you in time out—is revered. They obviously know everything because they’re adults. So you continue playing with your toys and don’t suspect a thing when your parent claims “I knew this would happen!”

They are obviously psychics and can see the future. Maybe they will grant you this power if you think and act just like them.

This is a fairly common experience for American children. But if all these parents seem to know exactly what a president is going to do, then why do they vote for them in the first place? Well, hindsight is 20/20. After something good or bad happens, we like to look back and remember all those little “gut feelings” and assume that we knew this was going to happen all along.

Remember the time you let a friend borrow something, then weren’t surprised when they didn’t return it. You know the person and that they weren’t good at returning things, yet you made a gut decision to lend it to them because you’re nice.

For some absurd reason though, you will keep lending things to untrustworthy people. Why? Cause you’re nice, you put your emotions over logic. But, you may ask yourself, sometimes being nice and putting emotions first is a good thing….right?

Well, look back to all the times your parent would repeat this same loop: vote, come home months later, throw bag, regret decision, reach conclusion that they are psychic, then in four years vote again.

They aren’t psychic, they are just illogical.

If you ask your parents, your teachers or your friends how they determine who to vote for, you are going to get a large amount of people that claim they just know. Or they will nonchalantly say they don’t know and they are just going to follow their gut.

But you’ve seen what happens when people go with their gut, you lose your favorite book or that movie you just got.

While losing a few objects because of emotional gut instincts isn’t a big deal, on a larger scale the losses are far worse.

In our country people celebrate grit, passion, and gut instinct genius; people don’t respect other point of views, don’t value other cultures or identities, and put their emotions over logic and analysis. This presidential election has banished Rhyme and Reason to their castle in the air and rational thinking is gone without these two.

You can search “gut feelings” and you will immediately get results claiming you should listen to them. Celebrities like Oprah repeat the mantra that all the great things that have happened to them were the result of gut decisions. But to put your career, your livelihood, your family in the hands of your intuition is dangerous territory.

Sure gut instincts were good for when we roamed the earth in search of food and when social expectations and interactions were incredibly simple. We needed those quick decisions because they could be the determining factor in our survival.

But we live in a much more complex world. We need to be conscious of the decisions we make, and how they will affect others. We need to see the trade offs and opportunity costs of our actions. We need to be analytical and not let our emotions cloud our judgement. We need to educate ourselves on all the options.

So as this election passes by, many are frustrated with the options. And as a result they will listen to their “gut instincts”. This election has seen so much anger, frustration, and hatred.

But this isn’t the first time this has occurred. Many past elections were filled to the brim with drama and you can be sure that there will be more to come.

By the time the next presidential election rolls around, everyone at Central this year will be able to vote. When 2020 arrives, don’t come home, throw your bag down regretting who you voted for, and decide that those little gut decisions made you psychic.

The people in office are there because that is what the people decided. So if you want a president that matches your beliefs on how the country should be run, you need to analyze your options. You need to put your emotions, preconceived notions and gut feelings aside. Take pride in the fact that you are a human being capable of logical, analytical, rational thinking.