Decisions are hard.

Send me into a grocery store to pick up lunch, and you’ll be waiting for at least half an hour. I’ll be fretting in the aisles because I can’t decide what I feel like. I pick up stuff, put it down, then pick it up again, all while muttering to myself and making sudden changes in direction as I dart from shelf to shelf.

This can be pretty excruciating, particularly for anyone who is accompanying me. But most of the time, I end up being satisfied with my choice. This is because while I’m choosing between ketchup or catsup, I’m reasoning with myself as to why I would or wouldn’t want either option for lunch. It’s not easy, and it’s definitely not quick, but it usually does result in post-lunch satisfaction (the best kind of satisfaction).

I try to be a creature of reason, applying this to most decisions I make, even the trivial (although I rarely consider lunch choice “trivial”) ones. This was why I was so taken aback when I asked my Grandma about who she was voting for and why.

“Because I’ve always voted for them,” she told me.
This got me thinking about loyalty, and how we let it get in the way of the decisions we make. Yep, I said it (or rather, it was a typed implication) – loyalty can sometimes be a bad thing. Loyalty can start off passionately – you may strongly believe in that particular person/group/idea, but eventually loyalty can become more of a habit. It may become a mundane, subconscious tendency, and you stop thinking about why you’re following who you chose to follow.

You may not have even made that choice to follow what you follow or believe what you believe, but you still get that niggling feeling that you should be following to it.

Ask yourself why you follow the footy team you follow. I like the Broncos – they’re a great side, but I doubt that I would have barracked for them if my family was into another team. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the fact is that I didn’t actively choose to follow them – I followed suit.

I wonder how many people follow a political team for that same reason. How many people consider why they support a party? Loyalty, from what I’ve seen in movies set in the middle ages, means supporting your party/team/king regardless of what they ask you to do. Your loyalty is non-negotiable.

Don’t get me wrong, loyalty is mostly good; it’s just that when you don’t question why you’re following that party or ask yourself if you actually agree with a policy that party is putting forward is when things go bad. Loyalty should be earned.

As easy as it makes the time at the polls, being loyal for the sake of being loyal is not only lazy, but incredibly foolish.

We should be asking questions. We should be having debates. We should be considering the point of view from the other side. Most importantly, we should be questioning ourselves.

Loyalty to Loyalty can be dangerous (however, it’s also a pretty good album), but blind loyalty can destroy a nation.