Then there’s Donald Trump. Whether you like him or not, he has certainly failed to live up to the dramatic and dire predictions accompanying his presidency thus far, while managing a number of successes, including tax reform, a windfall of conservative judges, and significant regulatory cuts. Mass chaos, martial law, and the predicted dramatic stock-market crash have not yet arrived, despite the implications of often-feverish news coverage.

Well, there’s always next year — in life, bad times can come at a moment’s notice. (In fact, Murphy’s Law suggests a Russian-led coup or a hostile and terrifying space-alien invasion will arrive the moment this column is published.) But until then, here’s the truth: While the world is not perfect, and never will be, we live in a wildly prosperous nation with unprecedented political freedoms. We have much to be thankful for. More importantly, not everything in life is about politics. The sooner we recognize that, the better 2018 will be.