Since high school, I’ve had a strong inclination towards politics.

Although I wasn’t even of voting age at the time, I decided that all of my friends, relatives and classmates needed to know why my world-vision was the correct one. I had catchy, over-simplified bumper stickers on my car, maintained a political-commentary blog, and was sure to post a good rant on my Facebook once or twice a day.

As you might have expected, I possessed a naive perception of how politics worked back then. I believed one side had the correct answers and one side had the wrong ones. But as I matured both emotionally and intellectually, I came to realize that, well, politics is hard.

The problems our nation (and planet, for that matter) cannot merely be resolved by one-size-fits-all solutions. I’ve seen protesters wield signs that read, “If your political opinions fit on a sign, think harder.” Although perhaps hypocritical, the message remains important: we’re going to have to try harder if we want to be successful.

Having said that, I don’t want to discourage anyone from taking political action. I’ve come to believe that many people allow the complexities of the political system to deter them from participating at all. Many of my friends and relatives ignore politics altogether simply because they can’t (or refuse to) understand it. This isn’t the answer either.

There’s a folk tale involving Benjamin Franklin emerging from Independence Hall immediately following the Constitutional Convention in 1789. As the story goes, a woman asked, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Mr. Franklin then famously replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

It’s easy to be a cynic about the way things are at the moment. I was discouraged away from voting during the last election partly because I felt that neither option best represented me. However, there are several other ways to get involved. For example, there are political groups on campus and around the community. There are also think-tanks and research groups around the region. There are many different ways to get more involved in the political system.

Witnessing the recent protests in Turkey, Brazil and Egypt, we should be inspired that individuals from all over the world are fighting for a better life for themselves and their future generations. We possess the same power over our own nation and we ought to wield it with responsibility, deliberation and maturity. Politics may get dirty at times; people may get offended. But there is a right way to participating in this grand system, and we should use it.