Political Anxiety

Whenever I tell people I want to be a politician they say the same thing.

“Are you sure?” they ask me. “You realize politicians have to talk to people right?” 

It always bothers me when people say that. But to be fair to my detractors, I am a shy person, often to the point of my own detriment.

During my freshman year of high school, I spent every lunch period sitting in the hallway, as far away from people as possible. I put my headphones on and tried to escape what felt like eyes constantly watching me. It took me months to sit in the cafeteria, let alone at a table with people. In class, I sat as far away from others as I could, and I almost never acknowledged other people out of fear of being acknowledged myself. 

But I still want to be a politician. 

Even though I dread starting conversations, I love explaining my ideas. In class, my hand almost never goes down. I could talk for hours about things I care about. My problem is my fear of bothering people — whenever I have to approach anyone, I feel like I’m about to make their day a million times worse.

A Growing Interest in Politics

Growing up, I had a vague sense of the ideas I support: Bigotry is wrong, education and healthcare are too expensive, and protecting the environment is important. Even though I believed this stuff, I wasn’t engaged in politics meaningfully. 

It wasn’t until 2024, when I took my first political science class, that I started to become interested. I learned a lot about politics and theory, and started to seriously think about politics as a profession. I learned about international relations theory and read a lot of political thinkers with different opinions. 

After taking the class, I felt politicians didn’t have a good enough understanding of theory to be effective at their jobs. I would read a text from the 19th century and see that the criticism the writer made is still valid today. If I could develop an in-depth understanding of theory, and bring my knowledge to the government, I would be able to help people more effectively than current officials. 

As I was thinking about a future career in politics, candidates were campaigning for the NYC mayoral primaries, which are elections where each party chooses a candidate to run in the general election. I decided volunteering for a campaign would be a great opportunity to get a feel for what working in politics might be like.

At first, I didn’t pay too much attention to the candidates’ policies — all I wanted to know was if anyone would let a 16-year-old campaign for them. I asked my political science professor and he told me about Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani, he said, would probably accept any help he could get. At the time, he was polling in the single digits and wasn’t even thought of as a serious contender.

I looked into Mamdani’s policies and they really stood out to me. My parents spend thousands of dollars each month on my brother’s daycare so free childcare would be a huge help to them. And city-run grocery stores sounded interesting because all the grocery stores in my neighborhood suck. They have very little variety and the quality of the items is subpar, especially considering how much they cost.

I decided to volunteer. But what would I do?

I figured there had to be small, behind-the-scenes volunteer opportunities. Sadly the volunteer options were all front and center — it turns out in order to get people to vote, you have to talk to them.

There were three options: Call people on the phone, knock on doors, or hand out flyers on the street. 

For a timorous person such as myself, that was a problem. Anytime I have to talk to a new person I have to remind myself that I’m not the most annoying person to ever exist.

Out of all the volunteering options, handing out flyers felt the least invasive. This wasn’t gonna be easy, but I wanted to push through. If I couldn’t do this for someone else’s campaign, how would I be able to launch my own campaign in the future? I needed to know if I could do this. 

I attempted to silence my fears and I signed up to hand out flyers that weekend.

Getting Out There

When I woke up that Saturday, my stomach was in my shoes. My legs buckled with every step; it felt like my blood couldn’t get all the way to my brain. At the same time, I felt like I was standing on clouds; I looked out my window and could see the city.  I had never had such high expectations for how a day was going to play out. I never appreciated how the sun makes the city shine like a gem before.

I looked at the clock and left in a rush. I was late, I couldn’t sleep the night before. At the meeting place, I wandered around and looked for the person I was meant to talk to. I had the head volunteer’s phone number but I was afraid to text him. I was late, I was just some dumb kid, I barely knew who Mamdani was. I shivered and blamed it on the February wind, but I was afraid. 

When I finally sent the text asking the lead volunteer where I could meet him, he responded immediately. I walked over, my hands clammy with sweat, the cold air making them freeze. 

I saw him, a tall blonde man, and approached him with my head hanging low. When I told him I was a minor, he was shocked, not because I look older than my age but because I was there at all. He commended me for getting invested in politics and handed me a stack of flyers. His kind words reassured me and for the first time all day, I felt like I was where I was meant to be, on the ground. 

I decided I would hand out my flyers at the local supermarket. The wind was strong as I walked, almost like it was telling me to stop, intensifying the anxieties I already had. Still I pushed on, holding tight to the stack of flyers. I couldn’t allow myself to be stopped by some wind. This was just the start of my political journey and if all it took to stop me was a strong breeze, there would be no point. 

Being rejected and imagining rejection are two radically different things.

When I got to the store, I obsessed over how I would greet people. I felt like if I said the wrong thing, someone would slap the flyers out of my hands. I stood on the corner dreading the failure I was sure would come. I felt like everyone on that block was staring at me, waiting for me to come up to them so they could crush the few hopes I had left.

To try to calm myself, I imagined myself as an underdog. I was a kid who couldn’t vote representing a candidate with less than five percent in the polls. I was going against a system I believed harmed people. I was doing this because it would make people’s lives better if Mamdani won. I was doing a good thing even if it was scary. 

Facing Rejection

I finally convinced myself to walk up to someone and ask if they were a registered Democrat. They ignored me. I went up to another person and asked the same thing, yet again I was ignored. Again and again, over and over, I pushed myself to ask people if they could vote in the primaries, and again and again, over and over I was ignored and rejected. 

I had prepared myself for rejection, or at least I thought I had, but being rejected and imagining rejection are two radically different things. 

I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up. I didn’t have to do this, I could’ve been at home or talking to people who I already know like me. After I was ready to give up, I asked one more person if they were looking to vote in the primary. I was ready for them to not even respond, or as ready as I could be.

To my surprise, they said they were interested in voting but didn’t know who to vote for. They said they didn’t like Andrew Cuomo but didn’t know much about the other candidates. I was ecstatic, I explained Mamdani’s policies and the person said they were interested in voting for him. The words practically flowed out of my mouth, I spoke like my life depended on him winning. In the moment, I wasn’t being brave, I didn’t have to build my confidence, it was natural.

After that, I felt like the rest would be easy.  I walked right up to the next person I saw. This time, I didn’t even need time to prepare. But before I finished my question, they walked away.

At that moment, I really thought about if I wanted to continue doing this. But deep down, I knew I had to keep going. The only person in my way was me. And the only person that could force me to do better was me.

By the end of the day, I realized something: I had actually talked to people. When compared to how much I wanted to do that day, it was a failure, but when compared to where I started, it was a success. It was hard, and tiring, and stressful, but I knew I was going to do it again.

I pictured myself sitting in the hallway my freshman year and thought about how I’m a different person now, even if only a little. I looked at the stack of flyers and held them tight in my hands. They felt lighter, the stack less dense. I know I may not have handed out all of them, but I did hand out a few. That’s progress.