Even in A World With Trump There Is A Freedom Nobody Can Take From You
Even in A World With Trump There Is A Freedom Nobody Can Take From You
Why your peace, purpose, and happiness depend on something no politician can control.
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #933: Tuesday, June 16th, 2026.
There is a temptation right now…a powerful one…to postpone happiness.
To tell ourselves that we’ll finally relax when things get better.
When the next election is over.
When democracy feels safer.
When the headlines become less insane.
When our preferred side wins.
When the people we oppose lose.
Many of us live with a running mental contract:
“I’ll be happy when...”
I’ll be happy when I make more money.
I’ll be happy when my health improves.
I’ll be happy when my partner changes.
I’ll be happy when the political climate improves.
I’ll be happy when I finally feel successful.
The problem is that life rarely honors these contracts.
Sometimes those things happen.
Often …they don’t.
And…even when they do, the happiness they provide tends to fade far faster than we imagined.
Which raises an uncomfortable question:
What if happiness was never supposed to depend on controlling the world around us?
What if there is a freedom available to us right now…even in a world with Trump… political chaos…economic uncertainty…and endless outrage…that no politician… billionaire…commentator…or movement can take away?
I think there is.
And if there is a secret to happiness, it may be this:
Happiness comes from reducing the gap between reality…and your demands of reality.
That sounds simple.
But…it changes everything.
Stop Arguing With Reality
This doesn’t mean surrender.
It doesn’t mean becoming passive.
It doesn’t mean accepting injustice.
It simply means recognizing a truth that philosophers…psychologists…and ordinary people have rediscovered for thousands of years:
A surprising amount of suffering comes not from what happens to us…but from our refusal to accept that it happened.
Reality is what reality is.
The election happened.
The diagnosis happened.
The breakup happened.
The betrayal happened.
The loss happened.
The first arrow is the event itself.
The second arrow is our war against the fact that the event occurred.
And…very often…the second arrow hurts more than the first.
We can spend years mentally shouting at reality:
“This shouldn’t be happening.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“Things aren’t supposed to be this way.”
Maybe they’re not.
But…they are.
Acceptance is not approval.
Acceptance is simply acknowledging the battlefield as it exists.
You can fight for change…while simultaneously accepting reality.
In fact, accepting reality is often the first step toward changing it.
Turn Your Attention Toward Something Bigger Than Yourself
Modern life encourages endless self-monitoring.
How do I feel?
Am I happy?
Am I fulfilled?
Am I succeeding?
Am I becoming the person I want to be?
Ironically, many of the happiest moments in life occur when those questions disappear.
When attention moves beyond ourselves.
Think about the moments that gave your life meaning.
Raising a child.
Helping a friend.
Building something.
Falling in love.
Creating art.
Serving a cause.
Protecting a community.
Working toward a mission.
In those moments…the self temporarily fades into the background.
Purpose takes center stage.
Humans seem poorly designed for endless self-focus.
We appear to flourish when we direct our energy toward something larger than our own emotional state.
The paradox is beautiful:
The harder we chase happiness directly…the more it tends to evade us.
The more we pursue meaning…contribution…and connection…the more happiness quietly follows behind.
Learn to Want What You Already Have
This may be the hardest lesson of all.
And…perhaps the most important.
The happiest people are not necessarily the people who get everything they want.
They are often the people who learn to appreciate what they already possess.
A healthy day.
A close friend.
A warm meal.
A peaceful evening.
The ability to walk.
The ability to think.
The ability to love.
We are remarkably skilled at adapting to blessings.
What once felt miraculous quickly becomes normal.
Then invisible.
Then insufficient.
The ancient Stoics understood this.
Buddhist teachers understood it.
Christian mystics understood it.
Modern happiness researchers keep rediscovering it.
Gratitude sounds almost embarrassingly simple.
But simplicity…and ease…are not the same thing.
Gratitude is simple.
Practicing it consistently is not.
Yet…few habits create a greater return on investment.
Move Toward Something Difficult
Many people confuse happiness with comfort.
But comfort…and happiness…are not the same thing.
In fact, too much comfort often becomes its own kind of misery.
Human beings seem to need challenge.
Growth.
Mastery.
Progress.
Contribution.
We need mountains worth climbing.
Not because climbing is pleasant.
But because meaning often lives on the other side of effort.
Think back to your proudest moments.
They probably weren’t easy.
They were earned.
The project that took years.
The relationship that survived hardship.
The cause you fought for.
The skill you developed.
The obstacle you overcame.
Life satisfaction rarely comes from consuming.
It often comes from becoming.
Love and Be Loved
If I had to reduce thousands of years of wisdom and decades of research into a single practical observation, it would be this:
Relationships matter more than almost everything else.
More than status.
More than wealth.
More than recognition.
More than achievement.
The longest-running studies on human happiness…repeatedly arrive at the same conclusion:
Close relationships are among the strongest predictors of well-being.
Not perfect relationships.
Not ideal relationships.
Not relationships free from conflict.
Real relationships.
The friend who answers the phone.
The partner who stays.
The family member who shows up.
The neighbor who cares.
The community that reminds you that you’re not alone.
At the end of life…very few people wish they had spent more time scrolling.
Many wish they had spent more time loving.
The Freedom Nobody Can Take From You
This is the freedom I believe no politician can take from you.
Not Trump.
Not Congress.
Not a president.
Not a governor.
Not a billionaire.
Not a social media algorithm.
The freedom to choose your relationship to reality.
The freedom to appreciate what you already have.
The freedom to pursue meaning.
The freedom to love.
The freedom to grow.
The freedom to contribute.
The freedom to decide where your attention goes.
That doesn’t mean politics doesn’t matter.
It does.
It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care.
We should.
It doesn’t mean we stop fighting for the country we want.
We shouldn’t.
But…if we place our happiness entirely in the hands of political outcomes…we hand over something precious that was never meant to belong to politicians in the first place.
The truth is that happiness has always been an inside-out project.
Not because external conditions don’t matter.
But because they can never fully determine the quality of a human life.
So…if I had to compress everything into a single sentence, it would be this:
The secret to happiness is learning to appreciate the life you have …while wholeheartedly participating in something meaningful beyond yourself.
Everything else…money…status…success…recognition…even politics…is often a supporting actor in that story.
And perhaps the strangest part is this:
Many people spend their lives pursuing happiness directly and never quite catch it.
Yet people who pursue meaning…connection…growth…gratitude…and love…often discover that happiness has been quietly following them all along.
#HoldFast
Back soon.
-Jack
Jack Hopkins
P.S. The people who most influence your life are not necessarily presidents… billionaires…media personalities…or politicians.
They’re the people at your dinner table.
The people in your phone.
The people you love.
The people who love you.
Don’t let the loudest people in America convince you they’re the most important people in your life. They aren’t.
Something to reread each day before I sign off my daily scroll!
#holdfast
Laura
Your comment about us refusing to accept what happens reminds me of a statement I heard recently that really helps me move forward, “whatever happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way…because it didn’t.”