The President is Not Your Savior

Strive to increase your happiness levels regardless of who wins

Today is election day. I wrote about why I think US Citizens should vote for Donald Trump, to enforce their boundaries, to say, “No” to the Democrat party that has gone insane. A couple of Kamala Supporters Democrats (who hate Trump) responded to my Note suggesting that my emotions were highly tied to who won.

One told me not to do anything that would jeopardize my freedoms for Trump (they must think we’re going to have another “insurrection” where people go to jail because he lost and they rioted). Another wrote, “He’s going to get crushed in the popular vote as he should, so give up that ‘dream’ right now.”

They think my hopes will be crushed. They think that my happiness levels will sink to the floor! This means they probably think that their happiness levels will rise and stay high if Kamala wins. That’s not what the studies show though. Here’s a short quote (with the emphasis mine) from my reading of the paper “Some Problems in the Forecasting of Future Affective States” by Daniel T. Gilbert And Timothy. D. Wilson.

If it is difficult to know whether we will be happy 15 minutes after eating a bite of spaghetti, it is all the more difficult to know whether we will be happy 15 months after a divorce or 15 years after a marriage. Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, and Wheatley (1998) have suggested that, people tend to overestimate the duration of their emotional reactions to future events - especially negative events - and that this can lead them to miswant in the long term. For example, Gilbert et al. (1998) asked assistant professors to predict how happy they would be in general a few years after achieving or failing to achieve tenure at their current university, and they also measured the general happiness of those former assistant professors who had or had not achieved tenure at the same institution. Although assistant professors believed that the tenure decision would dramatically influence their general happiness for many years to come (and hence desperately wanted tenure), the former assistant professors who had not achieved tenure were no less happy than the former assistant professors who had.

Similarly, Gilbert et al. (1998) asked voters in a gubernatorial election to predict how happy they would generally be a month after an election. Voters believed that they would be significantly happier a month after the election if their candidate won than if their candidate lost. As it turned out, a month after the election, the losers and winners were just as happy as they had been before the election (see Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978; Taylor, 1983; 1996; Wortman & Silver, 1989).

Do not misunderstand: Those assistant professors who were promoted and those voters whose candidate triumphed were surely happier about the event, and were surely happier for some time after the event, than were those who lost their jobs or who backed the incumbent governor, who lost hers. But after just a little while - a much littler while than the assistant professors and voters had themselves predicted - the emotional traces of these events had evaporated (see Suh, Diener, & Fujita, 1996).

The paper then discusses why we over-estimate our emotional reactions. That study was done a while ago, before the overreaction to COVID. And there’s a part of me that wants to caveat that perhaps because we’ve given our federal government more power, the results might be a little different if studied today.

However, I know too much about how our thoughts change our reality. Some people who decided to go along with the lockdowns were happier staying with their families and making changes in their lives. Some people got out of abusive relationships with their government and moved to states that didn’t lock down. People who were already in a good mental mindset made the best out of the situation. I would really like a study to be done today and over the next year on if this election affected baseline happiness levels. But I doubt anyone is doing it.

If you’re interested, when Biden was inaugurated as President, I made a video on my channel called, “Our President is not our Savior - Exit the Drama Triangle & Focus On Personal Responsibility.”

A couple of days later I did one about how Biden was powerless. Ultimately when Biden tried to do things that the people didn’t want, like mandate vaccines, some state governors, like my South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, sued him over it and won. This is one of the many examples in which he ultimately had no power.

Although I want President Trump to get back into office, I do not believe that that is the only way for me to be happy. My happiness levels do not require that he get into the White House again. If Kamala gets in, and tries to implement things that go against the constitution, our governors can sue again. States can decide to not take what the federal government says seriously. I want to share an article by

Bretigne

that is along these lines to help you see that future.

Maybe what America needs is not to fix Washington, D.C., but to let it sink and fall away. Maybe we need a lot more of the decentralization of power that we've seen beginning to stir over the past four years. - Bretigne

The Libertarian Case for Kamala

When Biden won, I had momentary feelings of fear and I took personal responsibility and dealt with what I was afraid of. Tackling the fear head-on was the best response. It’s what allowed me to see him as the powerless man that he was. Some would say he had a lot of power, he forced men into women’s bathrooms and on their teams. No, those groups and businesses decided to go along with it. They didn’t have to. But he didn’t physically force them to do anything. He didn’t force people to get vaccinated, no matter how much he wanted to. And the people who said, “No,” were vindicated and are vaccine-free.

Kamala Voters

Now I know that my readers are going to lean away from voting at all (saying it’s just a farce) or voting for Trump. But, I’m going to talk about how those who (mis?)want Kamala to win will feel in each case. They may think she’s going to be their savior against Trump (as a persecutor) deporting their migrant friends, breaking up bi-racial marriages, etc. They’ve got some ridiculous ideas about what Trump will do, and they think Kamala will stop it. They think she’s the sane choice.

If Kamala wins, their fear of Trump (or people like him) will not disappear. It is a free-floating fear. The media knows how to push those fear buttons. They don’t want to face their fears, so they project them onto Trump. You can see a great video here about one woman facing her fears of Trump. I posted it on Notes and got a lot of great responses. Check it out if you haven’t seen it.

But my point here is that the media knows how to push those fear buttons, and if they do not face their fears, then the media will keep pushing the buttons to get views. Their happiness levels will not actually increase in the long run with a Kamala win. And we all know if Trump wins, the media will continue to push those fear buttons as well. If they’re in a fear state, they think a Kamala will help, but it’s not actually going to do anything to assuage their fears. only they can do that.

Your Happiness is Your Responsibility

How you react to situations, whether or not you face your fears and become mindful, and if you choose to take responsibility is on you. A lot of people will feel like victims of an election result they don’t like. A lot of people will feel like saviors when they vote like they’re saving all of those other victims out there. Heck, I was thinking about the children who might not get transgender surgery and if just one didn’t get it because of a Trump vote, that’s worth it. I know the pull of seeing yourself as a “Savior” by voting. But it’s the responsibility of those parents of the children to protect them, not me, not us.

If Kamala wins and more children get mutilated, that’s not my fault, because it’s not my responsibility. It’s the parents. And all those other consequences, they’re just opportunities for people to do the right thing, or not. That’s their responsibility and their choice.

Your happiness levels depend on your choices, not someone else. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House for you to have a good life. And everyone else has responsibility over their own lives as well.

I said in a previous article that I was going to continue to improve my life, taking care of what I have power over and that’s my close, local house and world, and my mindset. I’m going to increase my baseline happiness levels personally. I’m going to make sure I have a better year next year, and that will not change based on who wins the presidency. You have that option as well. Everyone does.

Most will not choose it. Most will choose to celebrate and go back to their baseline of unhappiness after a honeymoon period, or they will claim to be a “victim” of a horrible system that allows others to rule over them against their will. Some people like playing “victim.” And it doesn’t matter what side of the political aisle they are on.

Be mindful of how you’re feeling, and ask yourself where you have the power to change to that and take that action. Only you can increase your happiness baseline.

People are in fear mode only because they think this election will have a huge effect on their lives. That happens when you place responsibility for your emotions onto other people. It makes a slave to what they do or don’t do. Taking personal responsibility for your mindset and your personal life is what frees you.

Did you vote? Do you feel your emotions are tied heavily to who wins? What are your thoughts?

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