Full Transcript for Happiness Is a Serious Problem | Dennis Prager's Original Lecture

talk and say some funny things. 00:03:32 Speaker 5: You will then begin to empathize with what I go through. There are times I think I'm very funny on the air, but there's no way of knowing. Nothing. If you speak about the Holocaust or you crack the funniest joke in the world, the walls are identical. And so coming to real life, just seeing people is a joy, and that too adds to my happiness. To use a word that I will refer to a great deal tonight, It's Rabbi Schwartz invited me to speak on this. I want to tell you something. This is probably the worst thing a speaker could say at a talk. I have never given this talk before. I have thought about it at Brandeis Bardeen. I used to talk about happiness, but it was it was more within the context of four weeks of the study of Judaism and to and to college aged men and women. I almost feel about speaking about happiness. After all, some very major thinkers have written on how to lead a happy life, starting from the Greeks and the Romans and obviously through Jewish life and so on. So I've been very hesitant. But Rabbi Schwartz asked me to speak on it. And we were just talking over there. And he said, you know, some of my friends, he was saying, think I'm a little Meshuggah, a little crazy for inviting you to come. Finally, you're going to come to the Chabad at UCLA. And I'm not going to have you talk on Judaism. I'm going to have you talk on happiness. And then he said, but on the other hand, what could be more Hasidic? That the motto, as it were, of Hasidism is, Yivdu et Hashem b'simcha, serve God in happiness, in joy. And it's very interesting, Barbara Eskleston at KABC was going around interviewing people, on a number of issues, and she came to my office. She does a show on KBC all day long. It's on for three minutes. Once, one week, it was on marriage and divorce, and she came by my place to talk to me, and I began by saying she expected from me an utterly traditional approach because. 00:05:37 Speaker 3: I am known in radio land as Mr. 00:05:40 Speaker 5: Tradition. I mean, I am the only person basically I know of in radio outside of gospel singers who takes religion seriously. I mean, you have to understand, it's me and all the fundamentalists. It's really, it's incredible. I have this reputation. You know, people see me, there's an aura of holiness as I enter the KABC studio. Because the media, it's just filled with secularists, with people for whom religion is voodoo. You know, you could take going back into the past seriously. You can take, you know, God knows what seriously, but not religion. Anyway, she comes over to my office and I began by saying, I will tell you a traditional view. It's no mitzvah to be unhappy. And she was shocked. that that would be my opening comment, because it is so often associated with religiosity, a somberness, especially the more religious you get, a somberness and so on. If there's one thing any of you know about Chabad, that is not correct. Whatever one will say

about the Lubavitch Hasidim, about Chabad, this group of Jews among whom you are, somberness is not the adjective. That one somber is not the adjective one would apply to them. So I guess in that regard, it is true. So we said, we'll talk about happiness. What should we entitle it? And then I realized happiness is a very serious problem. And I'd like to get into it in the way I always, or virtually always, give a talk. 00:07:10 Speaker 3: And that is in an enumerated manner. 00:07:13 Speaker 5: I don't know why, I just find if my brain were dissected, I am convinced one would find Roman numerals. I am convinced it is exactly how my brain works. I just think in terms of subsections and so on. I have for you six reasons why happiness is a serious problem. And let me get into them. And, of course, my favorite part is the question, answer, and alternate speech period. I just say that because if you can't beat him, join him. I just know I'll get alternate speeches anyway. By the way, where did you hide my water? Did you bring it up? Oh, thank you. Okay. All right. Happiness is a serious problem. The only thing I'll tell you is there's no order of importance. Let me begin with reason number one. There is a conspiracy against being happy. There is. There is a conspiracy in our lives, for the most part, against happiness. The conspiracy emanates very much from ourselves. For example, let's begin with the most obvious. There is no question, and this, I guess, is sad. That's why I say it's a serious problem. There's no question that some people are born happier than others. There's no question in my mind. Some people are born, well, since I seem to be a withered audience, I don't have to choose my words all that carefully. Some people are born with a big smile on their face, and some people are born with their middle finger extended to the world. There is no. 00:08:55 Speaker 3: Question about that. 00:08:56 Speaker 5: If you go to, I remember when my son was born, I was shaken to the core at the realization that all my theories, everything that I had learned in psychology and sociology was wrong. I had been taught that in the nature versus nurture debate, Nurture wins, hands down. That we are what we are, we feel the way we feel overwhelmingly because of environment, because of parents, because of society, because. 00:09:29 Speaker 3: Of economics, right? 00:09:30 Speaker 5: Socioeconomic conditions, forces, historical forces, not to mention, of course, parents, as I said, friends, the community, what religion you're born into. But every single kid born on January 31st, 1981 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital had a personality. They had no socioeconomic conditions affecting them unless there's pre-Nature, excuse me, pre-Natal socioeconomic environments. Nothing. 00:10:01 Speaker 3: They just came out with personality. 00:10:03 Speaker 5: Some were happy, some were unhappy, some were thrilled to be here, some were disgusted at being here. No, it was so powerful, the

realization. That so much of what I had been taught in that regard was just wrong. No one can deny the impact, that there is an impact, I should say, that society, that your parents and so on has on us. Of course, obviously, if parents had no impact, psychiatrists would go out of business. And that would be a calamity in Jewish life. It would be unacceptable economically. So I don't deny, and I really mean this, I don't deny the profound impact that parents have, the profound impact that society has. All I'm saying is, for some people, there is indeed a conspiracy. In other words, your genetic makeup may in fact be working against your being happy. Let's let's not get depressed over that. The irony here is that for the unhappy person, that's terrible news and they'll get more unhappy. 00:11:17 Speaker 3: That is not my point. 00:11:19 Speaker 5: In other words, I think I in my life, my motto, one of my mottos for my own life is I prefer clarity to happiness. Clarity is to me the greatest. I am willing to endure just about anything if I know why. And if I could, if somehow science knew enough to say, Prager, the reason you're in a bad mood in the 1970s and 80s. 00:11:42 Speaker 3: It's a joke. 00:11:44 Speaker 5: It's a joke. I'm actually a pretty happy guy. But I mean, let's say, you know, Prager, the reason you're in a bad mood for the last month. You think it's because of event X. 00:11:53 Speaker 3: Or event Y. 00:11:55 Speaker 5: It's actually hormone X and genetic predisposition Y. Now, I might have then anger at my creator, the creator of hormones and genes. That's another issue, and I'll get to the creator a little later. But at least it in some way is, I think, consoling that it isn't, as it were, me, that it isn't, as it were, all these events. Because let's be honest, folks, the exact same event can happen to two people. One brushes it off and the other mopes for a month. Right? 00:12:33 Speaker 3: I mean, it's remarkable. It is very rare. 00:12:36 Speaker 5: It is very rare that something is so cataclysmic in one's life that one cannot overcome it. 00:12:43 Speaker 3: It is very rare. 00:12:44 Speaker 5: And most people don't have such cataclysms. We all have traumas. We all have terrible things. All of us. All of us do. That, by the way, when you really understand that, you'll become happier to begin with. First of all, you will never be envious. Do you know how you can kill envy? By getting into your head in the most profound way you can, that no one has it better. It just seems that way. In that regard, if I leave you with nothing else, may I leave you with the words of Helen Talushkin, one of the prime thinkers of our generation, Joseph Talushkin's mother. My co-author Joseph Talushkin has a philosopher mother. One of the reasons, by the way, she thinks so clearly is she never studied philosophy formally. And she once said something that is worthy of inscription on over your mirror so you see it each morning in the bathroom as you

get up. Let me get it exactly right here. The only happy people I know are. 00:13:53 Speaker 3: People I don't know well. 00:14:03 Speaker 5: Is that not true? It's the ultimate truism. Now, when you really get that through your head, all of a sudden it starts occurring to you. Either you have a very, very unfortunately unhappy group of intimates, or you probably have an utterly unremarkable group of intimates. I don't mean not remarkable in characteristics, but in the sense of happiness. That everybody has his large pile of suras, of. 00:14:33 Speaker 3: Problems, of heavy ones. And by the way, you could never even know what they are. 00:14:38 Speaker 5: I'll give you an example. It's a trivial one, but it's a good one of how you never know another person's problems. I once heard a bald man say that when he enters a room, all he sees is hair. How many of you walk into a room and only see hair? I am convinced that started me thinking, and I'll bet that everybody has some problem in that area. I'll bet that there are others who, when they walk in, all they see are flat stomachs. Right? All they see are perfect complexions. Or you go down the line. Everybody has a particular thing. Please understand that. When you do, I find it consoling. Maybe this is sick. 00:15:29 Speaker 3: But I find it consoling that others have it lousy, too. 00:15:33 Speaker 5: I mean, it's not like I'm happy that there are quadriplegics walking around and go, see, then there are quadriplegics. You should be thrilled with life. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when you really understand that, you can never have one of the major causes of unhappiness. The grass is greener syndrome. The grass isn't greener. There is at least as much crabgrass in that grass as in yours. Critical to understand. Back to the first issue, that understanding that one of the reasons happiness is a serious problem is because things conspire against it. I told you about our genetic makeup, but our whole biological makeup conspires against us. My body says, eat cheesecake. Laughter Right? 00:16:23 Speaker 3: Is that not true? 00:16:24 Speaker 5: And my happiness says, don't eat cheesecake. I will be happier if I don't eat cheesecake. But I want to eat cheesecake. The trick is to eat cheesecake and be happy. 00:16:37 Speaker 3: This is it. 00:16:40 Speaker 5: By the way, not only is cheesecake a happiness problem, I hold that it is a theological problem. I have a series of questions. This will be another lecture. Prager's questions, should he meet God? 00:16:53 Speaker 3: I have a number. 00:16:54 Speaker 5: One is why he invented the mosquito. I consider that a major, major problem. I can deal with cancer. I mean, that stuff's easy. The mosquito is a very tough problem, as is why is cheesecake fattening and celery isn't? When I meet the Rabbanu Shalom, that is definitely up there. That was a bad joke. It's just a practical joke on mankind. So please understand, again, how things do. Just make peace

with the fact that there is this conspiracy against being happy. You know, I love when runners tell me that on the eighth mile, they get a high. I'm dead out of luck. You get a high, you know, that's wonderful. There is no high. Did you ever notice, though, there's no high from lying down? There's no, nobody has, there's high from reclining. There is a conspiracy. I mean, sincerely, there is a conspiracy of life versus happiness. You've got to fight yourself constantly. You've got to fight your genetic predisposition if it's to moodiness. 00:18:16 Speaker 3: Some people are. Some people are moody like babies. Some babies are. 00:18:20 Speaker 5: Born moody, and we're all grown up from that baby. Some people are moody having nothing whatsoever to do with what's happening in their lives. 00:18:30 Speaker 3: Nothing. 00:18:32 Speaker 5: Nothing. Most people in the world, knowing about nine-tenths of your lives, should think every one of you should be deliriously happy. well-fed, access to technology, friends, affluent, in a free society, not worrying about persecution. I mean, think about it. And yet, there are many other reasons which I'll come to why so many people aren't happy. But clearly, I can't say anything more important than this. Happiness is a battle against yourself. Understand that. That, by the way, in an odd sense, that I've always said might be one of the differences between liberals today and conservatives. Liberals feel that the greatest battle is between the individual and society. Conservative, especially the religious conservative, holds that the greatest battle in life is between you and yourself. And when you recognize that, I think then you have a chance to begin this very arduous task of becoming happy. Number two, again, one of the great ironies of the serious problem of happiness. One of the reasons that it's a serious problem is because people seek happiness. happiness. Isn't that odd? But I have no doubt whatsoever that the happiest people are those who do not spend their lives trying to attain it. If you try, if you devote your life to becoming happy, I say categorically, you don't have a chance. That's the irony, again, one of the great ironies of life. One reason is happiness is only attainable as a byproduct from something else. It is not attainable directly. I remember when I was director of Brandeis Bardeen, the students would write in. essays to be accepted. And I had a whole list of questions to ask them. One of them was, what is the most important goal in your life? 99% of them, it didn't matter if they were applying from Massachusetts or Northridge, would write, my greatest goal in life is to be happy. And as I would read it, I would realize, poor thing, she doesn't have a chance. It's already disqualified as a possibility. It's not attainable. Other things are attainable. And as a byproduct, happiness can be there. But the more you monitor it, that's the second reason, the more you monitor it, the worse off you are. Every time you ask yourself, am I happy? I think it pushes happiness one foot or one meter more away from you. The constant monitoring in this society reminds me of, you know, the proverbial kid in the car on a trip. 00:21:30 Speaker 3: Daddy, are we there yet? 00:21:32 Speaker 5: Are we there yet? Are we having fun yet? Am I happy yet? That's what adults ask. Am I happy yet is identical to are we having fun yet? The minute you ask it, you've blown it. 00:21:46 Speaker 3: Don't monitor it. 00:21:47 Speaker 5: Get so busy that you don't have time to wonder are you happy. And then, oddly enough, if somebody bumps you one day and says, they'll shake you, are you happy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm too busy. I've got to see you later. 00:22:02 Speaker 3: They have a chance. They have a chance. 00:22:04 Speaker 5: But if you spend your life contemplating your happiness and assessing it and wondering, how do I do it? I think you're finished. I think that is a recipe for misery, not for happiness. 00:22:15 Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now, back to this special episode of Timeless Wisdom. 00:22:25 Speaker 5: Number three, happiness in our society is very often confused with fun. And happiness and fun have very, very little in common. What is the difference between fun and happiness? It's difficult to answer, but I've worked out a basic definition, or at least an example of definition. Happiness, or I should say fun, is what you experience during something. And happiness is what you experience after something. And fun doesn't almost ever lead to happiness. I'll take trivial and then deeper examples. Trivial is a roller coaster. You're having fun on the roller coaster? Yeah. Does it bring you any happiness? Nobody has brought happiness from a roller coaster. A deeper example is the classic, which I'll bet some of you already were thinking about when I gave the definition, sexual relations. For the most part, they are a great deal of fun during. But how do you feel if you don't care for the person, if it's not in any context of involvement after it's over? usually not particularly happy, often disgusted. I don't want to see him. I don't want to see her. Let me get the hell out of here. It's the classic example. That's the best example of all. The most intense fun leading to a terrible depression almost after, not happiness, but almost a terrible depression when not in the context of something infinitely deeper than the sex itself. This is not an argument against sex. It's merely a statement of what the difference between fun and happiness is. Our society teaches by and large that if you accumulate fun, you will ultimately be happy. So when people even think about it, they'll go, am I happy? Well, listen, oh God, I go to all these parties. I go to a movie a week. I have a great stereo system. All of the things that they will enumerate happen to be areas of fun. But there was no correlation between adding up

fun and having happiness. None whatsoever. This was first brought to my attention by an Israeli, great, great Jew, a great Israeli scholar, Adin Steinzaltz, one of the great Talmudic scholars of our time. He visited in L.A. and I had him as our guest at the Brandeis Bardeen one weekend. And he mentioned that there was a word that he learned in America that there was no Hebrew equivalent to. And it fascinated him how often he saw it in America when he first came here. And the word was fun. And you realize that the country, it's fun and exciting, right? It's fun and exciting. It's like they go together. It's like, you know, M & M' s, fun and exciting. Right? And there is therefore a very understandable tendency to think that if I just have enough fun, I'll be happy. And I say to you that there isn't a relationship between fun and happiness. The people I have met, people that in the sense that I understand it could claim happiness. If I describe their lives to you, it does not radiate fun and excitement or an excitement of such a deep level that you can't use the word any longer. In that regard, there is another problem. And that leads me to number four. There is a general belief that happiness is the opposite of pain. That somehow you cannot have pain and be happy. That as it were, absence of pain equals happiness. My belief is absence of pain equals vegetable. I truly believe that. Lima beans, to the best of our knowledge, experience little pain. They should be deliriously happy. One should therefore have an aspiration to be a lima bean. But that is what I truly feel from people, especially from the mass of people I know who are passionless. Passion has to do with pain. God, I remember saying to the college students one summer, That if you have no pain, you have no chance for happiness. Not only that, you have no chance for personality. You have no chance for character. That pain forges just like a sculptor. He forges out personality from a clean rock. That's what pain does. It forges out personality from the smooth creature that's born the smooth baby. Now, I'm not advocating masochism, but I am advocating that pain be welcomed, that pain be understood. 00:27:50 Speaker 3: As absolutely inevitable. 00:27:52 Speaker 5: You can't live, you can't live without pain unless you desire to have a passionless life, unless you wish to survive. Which, by the way, is a problem in our society. There is such a value on surviving. that it seems that merely surviving, living more years with fewer health problems, that's the essence of life. But that's the essence of life only for vegetative matter, not for the human being. What's the difference how long you live in the ultimate analysis? Isn't it what you did during those years? I mean, don't you really believe that deep down? You don't believe it looking forward in your own life, but think about it for anybody else's life. Isn't that ultimately what matters? That's what constitutes, would you rather, would anyone here not trade in 45 spectacular, enriched, passion-filled years for 70 dull ones? I would. 00:28:51 Speaker 3: Think about it, by the way. Think about that trade-in. 00:28:54 Speaker 5: That's why I said on my radio show often, I think we've gone overboard with first on the smoking and then everything else. Oh my God, breathing kills you. I mean, there's going to be, we're going to have to walk around with signs. The Surgeon General has determined that breathing is dangerous to your health. Everything is dangerous to your health. Of course, that's true. 00:29:16 Speaker 3: So what? 00:29:17 Speaker 5: Life is dangerous to your health. Right? The unborn never gets sick. 00:29:28 Speaker 3: What's the difference? I'm not advocating sickness. It's better to be healthy. 00:29:32 Speaker 5: If I have my choice, I also opt for health. But the purpose of life is not to be healthy. It's a wonderful. thing to have. God knows, especially if you know what it's like not to have. God, it is the most important. It's very hard to overcome it if you're not, if you're chronically sick. But most of you here are not chronically sick. Maybe none of you here is chronically sick. That obsession is not a good one. Pain is terrific. Pain means you're alive. It means you're feeling. It means you're the opposite of a vegetable. What's wrong with pain? My father used to say when I was a kid, it doesn't kill you. He was a very sympathetic man, my father. 00:30:16 Speaker 2: I must tell you. 00:30:18 Speaker 5: As I walked in with my elbow hanging out of my joint, come on, Dan. Actually, though, I must tell you, I taught my son, he's now four, he falls, and unless, God forbid, it's a terrible fall, I don't hug him up and lick him up and kiss him up. I taught him to say, big deal, it's nothing. And it's something to see that he can now get up after a scratch, including even a little blood on his knee, and, you know, bite the bullet and say, big deal, it's nothing. 00:30:51 Speaker 2: And it works. 00:30:52 Speaker 5: That's what adults should have to be able to say. Big deal, it's nothing. Well, big deal, it's something. Sometimes it is something. 00:30:58 Speaker 3: So what? 00:30:59 Speaker 5: You want a pain-free life? It's almost possible to live. Have no relationships with anybody. Take no risks in life. Live in a very, very isolated environment. 00:31:11 Speaker 3: Sure, it's possible. 00:31:12 Speaker 5: Get enough sleep every night. Do the right things healthfully. You're absolutely right. And on your tombstone, they will write, here lies a healthy man. if people would understand that pain is inevitable and I will go further it is not only inevitable it is indispensable to happiness it is not possible to attain happiness without pain it is possible to attain fun without pain that's why I'm linking these two parts the part confusing happiness with fun It's not fun, happiness. Maybe I should have entitled the speech that happiness is not fun. But that's another

way of looking at this. Happiness isn't fun. Pain is part of it. Think about some of the things that have ever brought you happiness. And remember, I'm using the words brought you happiness. Let's say if you have children, children can be a source of happiness, a source. Sometimes Jewish life goes overboard and makes them the source, which is mistaken because it puts a weight on the children to supply happiness, which is not healthy for anybody. But nevertheless, having said that, they can be a source of happiness. But there is no one in the history of humanity who has ever had children who has said that children are fun. They may bring happiness, but they ain't fun. Right? 00:32:45 Speaker 3: Ask your parents if you're not a parent. 00:32:51 Speaker 5: In my life, aside from my child, something that has brought me, I don't know if the word happiness, which I use sparingly, but it has certainly brought me some element of what that thing called happiness is, has been my books. Knowing that if somebody, to this day, to know that it has touched somebody somewhere, is just such a wonderful feeling. In a sense, they're like children books. And let me tell you, it is so not fun to write a book. 00:33:20 Speaker 3: It stinks. 00:33:22 Speaker 5: I much prefer any of the things I enumerated that bring fun to writing a book. The 48th revision of that page, you think that is fun? You've written from term papers to whatever. Is that fun? People take uppers just to write a term paper. You can imagine what it is like to write a book. The pain is part of it. Please understand that. Big deal, it's nothing. One has to understand that. But look at what comes out of it. And then, boy, you receive a copy of your book in the mail, or whatever it is for any of you, or whatever project you worked on. No one's project is more important than another's. You all have an example of this in your life. If the project is your child, if it's something at work, if it's a friendship, if it's establishing something in the community, it's rarely fun. Sometimes there is an element, and then that's icing on the cake, but it's certainly not the cake. Number five, I contend to you that we are constantly being taught in this society to be unhappy. It's an odd-sounding statement. And it finally occurred to me when I saw an ad in some L.A. 00:34:43 Speaker 3: Paper. 00:34:45 Speaker 5: All L.A. papers blend in to my mind. And this was the ad. Something to the effect of if your sex life is not all you want it to be, give us a call. And it's a sex therapy clinic. A very, very serious ad. And I looked at it and I just kept staring. Light bulbs were popping off. And I realized that outside of Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione, that ad applied to every American alive. I mean, unless I have particularly weird friends. 00:35:38 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:35:39 Speaker 5: One whose sex life is exactly what he or she would like. And I realized what a great thing, what a miraculous little ad that was.

It made everybody who could possibly be happy with his sex life unhappy with his sex life. Genius. What genius was at work in writing in one sentence, the whole society could be made unhappy. It was brilliant. It was brilliant. And then I realized that with all their good intentions, quite aside from profit-making, but many with very good intentions, that a very large part of the health professions, of the mental health professions, are there to tell you, you think you're happy, you're wrong. In every way. I was talking to a friend recently, and he was telling me about these very seriously dating women, He may get married. And he was describing to me what sounded to me like a very lovely physical relationship. Sounded darn good to me. And then he started to say what it was lacking as if he had been reading a textbook about what he's supposed to have. And that's what exactly goes on in our minds. We have textbooks of this ideal that if we are failing in the happiness realm, we are not happy. But since, as I said, outside of the publishers of Playboy and Penthouse, I can only speak as a man because I am only a man. I mean, if you want to know what men would like, how they could answer that question and that ad affirmatively, two people's lives I know of, Guccione and Hefner. Any gorgeous girl they want, they sleep with. Well, their sex lives are fine. 00:37:33 Speaker 3: I don't know if they're happy. I mean, it's a miserable way to find. 00:37:36 Speaker 5: Out, but still. Nevertheless, that is the only way I can speak for women. I'm honest in that regard. I have an idea of how women would answer that question. But I will only speak for men. Men could not answer that question in the affirmative if they are not having that. 00:37:55 Speaker 3: Type of life. 00:37:57 Speaker 5: It is asking people to become unhappy. I use sex as the example. It could be anything. 00:38:04 Speaker 3: Whatever it is. There will be something that you are being taught. You're not. Is your life fulfilled enough? Is your life this enough? 00:38:14 Speaker 5: Right? 00:38:14 Speaker 3: Enough. Enough. Is it enough? 00:38:16 Speaker 5: Is it enough? Is it enough? But it's never enough. We're insatiable. The human being is insatiable. That's very important. That brings us back to point number one of the war with our own bodies. It's a war. We are insatiable. Men sexually, women perhaps emotionally. There are different needs in the two sexes that are not ever truly satiated. I mean, how often can a woman say, I have enough emotional intimacy in my life. I seek no more whatsoever. It's unheard of. That woman would be putting a Smithsonian, a recording of her with a model. Or a man say, I have enough sex. I have zero desire for any more. My cup runneth over. It's true in any area. That is why, I mean, that is why when the Talmud asks who is the happy man, who is the rich man, there's such truth to the answer. Who is content with what he has? That's exactly the point. Are you content with your house? Forget sex. That's so emotionally. 00:39:29 Speaker 3: Your house. 00:39:31 Speaker 5: How many people... I'll bet most of you live in what 99% of humanity in all of history would envy, would drool over. Does it make you happy? By the way, can a house make one happy? I don't think it can. It can certainly contribute. But I have found that happy people are happy in a one-room studio apartment in mid-Manhattan and happy if they get a mansion, if life should so favor them. And the unhappy were unhappy in the studio in mid-Manhattan and unhappy in a mansion in Beverly Hills. That's unbelievably important to recognize. If you have a list in your mind of the things that will make you happy, it's 99% of the time baloney. They won't make you happy. You will have a new list right after that list. A survey was once done in America, by the way. What salary will make you happy? And everyone answered 25% more than they were earning at that time. Whatever they were earning, they needed 25% more to. 00:40:37 Speaker 3: Make them happy. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now, back to this special episode of Timeless Wisdom. 00:40:48 Speaker 5: We are taught to be unhappy by our society today. It is done by capitalism, which I favor, by the way. Capitalism, this is just one of its inherent flaws. You're happy with your Toyota? 00:41:05 Speaker 3: You are happy with. 00:41:07 Speaker 5: A simple four on the floor, 2.8 liter, four cylinder. When there was now a six cylinder, three point whatever liter overhead cam five with revolving turbo lights. I can't believe it. How can you be happy? If you're happy, car dealers go out of business and they're unhappy. Yeah. So there's a bombardment against feeling happy through capitalism, and there's a bombardment against being happy through the social sciences, the mental health profession, constantly telling you why you shouldn't be. You're not fulfilled in this area. You're really not happy in that area. And then let's talk about it. By the way, that's not to say I am pro-therapy, I am pro-mental health professions, and I'm pro-capitalism. But understand the advertisements that are being made from all in the truest sense of the word advertising that you're really not as happy as you could be. What we're learning to be, oddly enough, is and believe me, people don't have to be taught this is to be unappreciative of what we have. You don't appreciate your body could be leaner, could be smoother, could be younger, could be better, could be less wrinkled, could be firmer, could be this. You don't appreciate your spouse. Your spouse, too, could be leaner and firmer. But whatever it is, you don't appreciate. We're taught not to because we could think any... We're living in a society where, in a sense, we're being taught anything is available to anyone. And deep down, we believe that. And by God, I'm not going to let life deprive me of that particular joy.

00:42:55 Speaker 3: I'm just not. 00:42:57 Speaker 5: I am going to have that spouse. I'm going to have that sex. I'm going to have that fun. I'm going to have that body. I'm going to have that trip. I can't live a life deprived of that potential. By the way, to a certain extent, that's good. That's good, too. You see, life is a tension. The opposite is not desirable either, where one says, no, there is no need for me to improve anything. 00:43:22 Speaker 3: All is good. 00:43:23 Speaker 5: There is no reason to be ambitious. Everything as it is is perfect. There is a tension. There is a tension. But we have certainly gone overboard in the one I just mentioned. By the way, with children, it's particularly sad. With the spouse, as I described, you can get rid of a spouse, you can't get rid of children. And with children, it is very sad when a parent will think, she could be prettier, he could be more brilliant. And parents don't even appreciate their children. God, would I love a secret vote in this room with how many of you think your parents have appreciated you. It would be a very telling thing. Very telling. Parents don't appreciate their kids. They appreciate the Rosenberg's kids. Pops me up. It's a remarkable thing. You know, kids have that ludicrous question, why can't we have a 25-inch Trinitron remote control? The Coens have it, but parents do the same thing to kids. 00:44:25 Speaker 3: They may not. 00:44:25 Speaker 5: Verbalize it, but why can't you be like the Schwartz's kid? That is in parents, and it's communicated insidiously. So even in that regard, there is a lack of appreciation. Your child could be the most wonderful little creature. A good dineshuma, as we say, a good heart, a good soul, but not brilliant. Not appreciated. It's a very sad thing that we're taught in that sense in so many areas not to be appreciative. Number six. Here's again a tension. Some people look too much within. They think that they will find happiness within. without recourse to anything outside themselves. This is particularly in New Age thought, where everything is within. God is within, happiness is within, meaning is within, everything, my ventricles are within, everything is within. 00:45:27 Speaker 3: This is the bullet. One needs no one. 00:45:31 Speaker 5: One needs no thing. One needs no community. One needs no country. One needs no loyalty. One needs no spouse. One needs no children. One needs oneself. We're a complete universe unto ourselves. Now, that is an extreme, but it is an extreme that a lot of people are feeling, and it's just there is no possibility for happiness, I believe, in that route. We need each other. We need people. I don't just mean a spouse. We need a community. We need friends. We need them badly. We need a community. And in America, community is the single greatest thing lacking in comparison to other countries. Every country in the world, to the best of my knowledge, has more of a communal sense, a community sense. 00:46:22 Speaker 3: Then we do. 00:46:23 Speaker 5: Now, we're the most unhomogeneous society in the world, right? From Los Angeles, my God. I do a TV show on KTLA, and it's the perfect example. The two producers are Japanese-American and Mexican-American. The two hosts are myself, a Jew, and a woman who's a black. There is not a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in the studio. 00:46:49 Speaker 3: There isn't. 00:46:51 Speaker 5: It is like the United Nations making up the show. And it is the United Nations down the streets of Los Angeles. That is noble and it is beautiful, but it wreaks havoc on community life. 00:47:04 Speaker 3: That's the problem. 00:47:05 Speaker 5: Communities need more than just being people in order to feel community. Maybe one day it'll evolve into that. Right now it isn't. That is one of the reasons, by the way, that it is... that people with roots are just happier than people without roots. If I may be Jewish for a moment, because everything I've thus far said is so universal, those Jews who have cut themselves off or whose parents have cut them off from their Jewish roots, forgetting anything with religious truth or theology or any of that, have simply in a certain sense deprived them of the single greatest source of happiness, that Judaism, in a sense, can give. The sense of utter rootedness. Rootedness in a community, rootedness in history, rootedness in a people. That's a very wonderful feeling. It's a joy. You cannot create alone this world of happiness. There are things you can create alone, and I'll come to that. Which brings me to the other extreme. Just as there are those who look all within for happiness too much, and cut off the need for others, there is also the danger of those who look too much outside. As for example, the girl who says, I'm not happy now, but I'll be happy when I get the right guy. What she's really saying is, I'm not happy now, and I'll make the right guy unhappy too. 00:48:38 Speaker 3: That way we can both be unhappy. 00:48:46 Speaker 5: See, that's the other danger, is while we need from without, in some sense it has to come from within. You have to be, in many ways, not always, in some ways, the source of your happiness. Not the ultimate source. I'm going to come to the ultimate source. But that is not dependent upon others to give it to you. One good test of that is to ask in your mind, what do you think will make you happy? It's a very good way to analyze it. And if it's other stuff, a raise in income... a different job, a man or a woman, in whichever case, and in California that goes in so many directions, one doesn't know where to begin. That's a danger. That's a danger. There is nothing more desirable than to marry someone who's already happy. I mean, that's the whole point. 00:49:43 Speaker 3: I am happy. You're happy. 00:49:45 Speaker 5: We can create something happy. But I can't depend on you for my happiness. That's the terrible tension. Despite all I just said about the need for

community, the need for friends, the need to relate to people, yet in the ultimate analysis, you can't depend on another for your happiness. 00:50:05 Speaker 3: You cannot. 00:50:06 Speaker 5: You just make both of you more miserable. Definitionally, it can't happen. You've got to work on it, and that's painful. God, is that painful. to work on making it possible for you to be happy. That's another thing, by the way, I learned about this inability in some ways to be alone. We have no communities, and on the other hand, we can't be alone. Many years ago, when I was in high school, the principal, Rabbi David Eliach, was an Israeli, and he mentioned once how it just came out then, the invention of instant-on television. 00:50:45 Speaker 3: Remember, that was a big deal. 00:50:47 Speaker 5: And he said, this is amazing to me, he said, that this is such a big deal in America. God forbid you should have to wait 10 seconds in silence. 00:51:02 Speaker 3: Interesting point. Think about it. Think about it. 00:51:07 Speaker 5: You know, in that regard, that there is no ability almost to have silence, to be with oneself in the society. Even in an elevator alone, you're not alone. There's music being beamed in. You can't even wait on a hold line any longer without music being beamed in at you. You almost have to not walk with earphones, which is the opposite, but walk with earplugs. in a sense, to appreciate silence. It's one of the reasons that the Shabbat, that the Sabbath, without technological intrusion of TV, radio, stereo, is such a. 00:51:43 Speaker 3: Powerful thing to me. And I am not, as you heard, I am not orthodox. 00:51:47 Speaker 5: This is not an advertisement for a life devoted to the 613 laws. It's to tell you the supreme brilliance of that insight, that a day of the week to just shut off that technology You know a home that takes the Shabbat seriously. The second you walk in on Friday night, forget there were candles. It has nothing to do with the candles. Just a silence. You hear human voices, not voices coming through Altec Lansing speakers. Do you understand? Real human voices. There is nothing else to do but talk. You can't go to Johnny Carson. You can't go to a radio talk show. You can't listen to prefabricated music. You've got to make your own music through singing. It's such a powerful revolution. Try driving without your radio on. God, is that a different experience. And God, should KABC hear me say that. That's why there is a tension. Yes, you can't depend on others, but yes, we do desperately need others. In a sense, we've done both backwards. Those are six reasons it is a problem. Happiness. My final comments about solution or the solution is obvious. Do the opposite of all six problems. I mean, in the ultimate analysis, that would be the point. I mean, in a sense that you know where I began with number one, our natures conspire against us, conspire against your nature. That's how you answer it. Answer back. 00:53:35 Speaker 3:

Say no. 00:53:36 Speaker 2: No. 00:53:38 Speaker 5: I'm not going to listen to that appetite. I'm going to control me. It's not going to control me. And God, that's painful. And God, that's tough. But God, is it a happy feeling if you can conquer it? Ultimately, that's such a powerful, powerful sense. I said number two is to seek it. Don't seek it. Seek other things. I'll talk about other things in a moment. But seek other things. Don't seek happiness. Get out of your mind. My goal, my greatest goal is to be happy. Just erase it. Number three, it's confused with fun. Don't aim for a lot of fun. Aim for deeper things that I will come to. Just fun, just once you realize that, parties will become less important. Most people go to parties because they think there will be they will get some happiness. 00:54:30 Speaker 3: In other words, there is an association. 00:54:32 Speaker 5: Of fun with it. A lot of times you're not in the mood to go to a party. You feel obligated to go. The obligation emanates from that script in your mind that somehow more fun makes happy. More fun doesn't. You know, and I always realized that when I go to a ball game, God, people seem happy. They seem delirious. They are so excited for their team. And then the game is over. And they have to rush to the car to hear the post-game show. It's like post-coitus. It really is. There's this letdown, and they're hoping for something to keep them going. So you have the post-game show and the post-game interview and the post-game recap and the recap of the recap. Right? I know. My station is the Dodger station. There are nine hours of recaps. It's unbelievable. Precaps and recaps take up much of summer programming on my station. 00:55:31 Speaker 3: And that's because you can't let go of the fun. 00:55:34 Speaker 5: Because once it's over, it's back to real life. It was like shooting. It's like shooting stuff into you. Fun is a drug in that way, but it doesn't make you happy. I said fourth, that it's the belief that it's the opposite of pain happiness. 00:55:50 Speaker 3: Welcome pain. Understand that's part of life. Terrific. 00:55:53 Speaker 5: Half the battle is already done when you know pain is okay. Pain is terrific. Number five, about constantly being taught to be unhappy. Why don't you instead say, my God, what wonderful kids I have. My God. God, am I lucky to have this spouse. My God, yes, sex life isn't so spectacular. Who's it spectacular with? What does spectacular mean? Since when? Where is it written? Thou shalt have a spectacular sex life. Spectacular sex lives are in fantasies. 00:56:29 Speaker 3: Fleetingly, occasionally, it. 00:56:31 Speaker 5: Is possible to real human beings in real lives. It is a recipe for misery to compare one's real life to this fantasy agenda. I can't emphasize that too much. It's a recipe for misery. Because when is it fulfilling? When will you be able to say to your shrink, now I'm sexually fulfilled? That doesn't mean that one doesn't try to work things through. You try, you do try. But know, but know that in the ultimate analysis, to be a person is to fail. It is, it is. and revel in the fleeting successes rather than constantly mope over the rest, which is what we're taught to do. And about the looking within and looking without, obviously I spoke of the middle road. How is all of this attainable? Well, I think ultimately everyone clearly has to do it in his or her own way. I'm very, in that regard, individualistic. Nevertheless, I do believe that some things are virtually essential. I say virtually only because I can conceive of a human being who doesn't have them, who would be happy, but I don't think it is the happiness that I understand, that I understand as a deep happiness. 00:57:52 Speaker 3: And that is, ultimately, values higher than the self. 00:58:00 Speaker 5: I think that when you have values higher than the self, than you, your chance for happiness is increased and indeed it becomes possible. Ironically enough, it is living for something higher than you that allows you to live at its highest. It's one of the great paradoxes of life. I believe Mother Teresa is happy. I do. 00:58:26 Speaker 3: I don't know if she is. I believe that she is. 00:58:29 Speaker 5: Yet clearly, it's not fun. Now, picking the dying off the streets of Calcutta just isn't a blast. No, I'd rather go to a Met game, personally, to tell you the truth. But I understand, but in the deepest sense, there's no time when she has to, she doesn't need a post-game recap to keep the adrenaline going. To see what she sees in the face of people she's given to. And I know this is the greatest danger about what I'm about to say in these last five minutes is that I'll lapse into cliches, something I hate in any speaker and detest in myself. But I'll have to figure out a new way of phrasing the cliche that giving to others, that living for the higher is ultimately the greatest source of happiness. It is. Ask anyone who you think is. They're not going to tell you because they have a lot of fun. And the chances are they don't go to many movies. 00:59:29 Speaker 3: And many fun suppliers such as parties. 00:59:31 Speaker 5: That's the irony. Ask the handful of people who have some element of happiness. And by the way, while talking about happiness, it's a term I've never defined, and it's not definable, obviously. But I'll tell you what I do strive for, since I don't strive for happiness. I strive for inner peace. Inner peace is attainable as well, of course, as a byproduct only. But ultimately, I think it happens when one has a perspective on life. And you can only have a perspective when you aren't everything. That's again an irony. You're not everything in life. There is stuff infinitely higher than you. It's just relaxing to know I'm not that important is oh so relaxing. I don't take it so seriously. I'm here. I want to do the good I can do. I want to live life to the fullest. But, you know, this creature, this

thing isn't that absolute important. 01:00:30 Speaker 3: It's important, don't get me wrong, but it's not this. 01:00:34 Speaker 5: That's part of the problem of the health preoccupation, which, by the way, all of which ultimately is an issue to me. And here is, of course, what's notorious for always coming back to, secular versus religious. I will say something that will offend, perhaps, but shock... perhaps as well. And that is, I am convinced that it is not possible to be completely a-religious and happy. I don't guarantee if you're religious you'll be happy. I guarantee a-religion, irreligion, must lead to inner angst. It is not possible for, to imagine. Selma Nietzsche made this point. And I'm using non-Jews as much as possible, lest you think there's a hidden message for Judaism, which there often is. But I want to show that these are universal truths. There's no monopoly on this wisdom in Judaism. Solzhenitsyn said once, it was a very smart point, it really hit me. He said, it's so pessimistic, the secular outlook on life. It's just so pessimistic. What he meant was, and it is so true, Think about it. If there's no God, if there's no ultimate God in this universe, and we really are just a coincidence of molecules, isn't that so pessimistic? All our hopes, all our desires, everything we think is important is as trivial as any molecule in the ocean. That ultimately life is one big, bad, practical joke. Don't you understand that? That's the secular attitude. Secularists deny it all the time. 01:02:20 Speaker 3: I have an ongoing battle with them in the Jewish Journal. 01:02:24 Speaker 5: But it's not deniable by the great thinkers. 01:02:27 Speaker 3: Sartre never denied it. 01:02:31 Speaker 5: None of the great secular thinkers deny that if there is no God, life is ultimately meaningless. What they say is, now that you're here, make up a meaning or you'll go mad. People cannot wake up every day, look in the mirror and say, good morning, you meaningless puff of molecules. You just can't do that. Of course you can't do that. So you make up a meaning. Parenthood, niceness, hedonism, good or bad, you'll make up one. You can't live without meaning. But that's the biggest problem. It's the boredom. There is a profound boredom in our society, and the boredom emanates from secularism. That's the biggest single problem. You can be busy all day in the law office, but you're bored. 01:03:22 Speaker 3: You're bored. 01:03:23 Speaker 5: That's why the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about how the yuppie generation is so fearful of retirement because everything is in the profession bag. All meaning in life derives from work. No work can conceive of dying. There's going to be mass suicide of our generation 40 years from now. I truly believe that. I truly believe that. It is not possible not. Everybody analyzes about these youths with the suicides. And I've asked a question which nobody bothers studying. Just I'd love to know one thing. And I'm not saying that this is the only answer. Obviously not. There are family issues that are obviously often a part of it. But I would love to know what proportion of the kids who commit suicide are religiously active. Go to church every Sunday. Go to synagogue every Saturday. I'd love to know, even with parents squabbling and kicking each other. 01:04:19 Speaker 3: I'd just like to know. 01:04:21 Speaker 2: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now, back to this special episode of Timeless Wisdom. 01:04:30 Speaker 5: Ultimately, there is no answer. We're here and we're basically going to jog through life. That's a secular response. The preoccupation with the biological is a secular response. That's all that's real is physical. There's nothing higher. And that is a recipe, I am convinced, for a lack of happiness. Obviously, all of these subjects are so very personal, and I can just tell you from my own life, with pains that I have had, as everyone has had, that the sense of rootedness, the sense of being rooted in a God, in a people, in a history, it is just so, it is such a vast resource of strength that those who don't have it, I obviously only can feel, God, I wish you did. not because, hey, I've seen the light, I've seen truth, I'm a very skeptical thinker, but only because I understand that in the ultimate, true ultimate analysis, that inner peace is not possible unless you have a rooted sense of higher values, and that ultimately emanates only from religion. C.J. 01:05:46 Speaker 3: Jung once said, the. 01:05:48 Speaker 5: Great psychoanalyst, that he had never healed A patient who was in the second half of his life, in other words, in that time, we're talking over 30, who in the final analysis did not come to a religious perspective on life. And that makes perfect sense to me. Perfect sense. What else is there? To know you and God, you walk with your God, I mean, that is very powerful. You walk with your people, you walk with your religion. That's when, that helps combat the loneliness. I've learned this from people. You get five years of doing religion on the line. That's a priest, minister, rabbi every Sunday night for two hours, commercial free. So it's equal to like 12 hours. Believe me, you learn something. You know, every week for five years, you spend two hours with clergy, different ones each week. And it's interesting. It is interesting. you do realize they're different from most secular guests I have on my TV show. Whether it's fundamentalist, Protestant, liberal, Catholic, reform rabbi, orthodox rabbi, the religious individual ultimately marches to the beat of a different drummer. You may not even know it, but it is clear to anyone looking in from outside, there is slightly more inner peace. There are still questions. The religious person loses a child, the pain is less. But it doesn't become a bad joke. It's a bad joke when you suffer and there's no God. Don't you see? It's bad luck. Why did you lose

your kid and X didn't lose his kid? That's the way the cookie crumbles is the answer of secularism. Does religion have a better answer? Yes, it does. 01:07:39 Speaker 3: We don't know. But there is a God. 01:07:41 Speaker 5: And for some, in some odd way, it makes sense. That's all we're prepared to know. 01:07:46 Speaker 3: We don't know. Why does God take this child and not another? That is up there. 01:07:51 Speaker 5: It's even ahead of my mosquito question. But at least knowing there is a God and knowing this is not random molecules, that I'm just not random molecules, is very powerful. And that allows for an inner peace and you don't take the other stuff so seriously. I'll end with a personal anecdote. My friends, my colleagues in life and at the radio station were very surprised One years ago, when I was offered a nightly show on KABC, the top radio station in big city LA, prime time, seven to nine every night. And I said, I won't do it if I have to go on on Friday night. And a lot of people asked me and the guy and it was very nip and tuck. They did not make such exceptions. A talk show was Monday to Friday. It worked out. 01:08:43 Speaker 3: But they were surprised too. 01:08:44 Speaker 5: Dennis, this is such a great career thing and it's such good money and you'll be so famous. All the words that are supposed to give you instant orgasm. Fame, money, and success. Right? that could be more media media media and it was interesting because i i really i analyzed myself a great deal when i said you know dennis you know i would say prager i usually call myself prager prager. 01:09:12 Speaker 3: Do you, you know, do you feel bad about this? 01:09:16 Speaker 5: In other words, is there some part of me, as I would know, is there some part of me that said, you know, look, I have to do it because, you know, X, Y or Z. 01:09:26 Speaker 3: But really, it's very painful. Zero. 01:09:30 Speaker 5: It was zero, zero ambivalence. I'm going to give up the fourth commandment for a talk show. Makes me think of it as so ludicrous as to be beyond description. 01:09:43 Speaker 3: That's the point. 01:09:44 Speaker 5: I'm not telling you I'm a hero. I'm telling you I'm not a hero. That's the point. The hero is the one who has to really slave at it, who has to suppress deep inclinations. 01:09:54 Speaker 3: I'm no hero. 01:09:54 Speaker 5: It was just so obvious in my perspective of what's important that talk show is ludicrous in comparison to the Sabbath. You know, if they'd have said you have to wear linen and wool in your jacket or not have a talk show, this, you know, well. 01:10:18 Speaker 3: That'll be Moshiach Zeit, you know, when they have that. That's the point. That's inner peace. 01:10:25 Speaker 5: When you just know what's ultimately important, what's ultimately not important. So with all of those things, I hope that the serious problem of happiness is addressed in some way that'll ultimately afford you some greater happiness. 01:10:40 Speaker 3: Thank you very much. 01:10:46 Speaker 2: Tomorrow on timeless wisdom with dennis. 01:10:49 Speaker 1: Prager today's ultimate issue coincides with drum roll please the newest course at prager university this is a big one we roll them out now at about one a month isn't that right uh chancellor We were talking yesterday about our titles, and I guess I'm president of Prager University and Chancellor Estrin, better known to you as Alan. What is this, Sean? We should give Sean a title. Athletic director. You know, you're fast mentally. I love that. If you're willing to have that title, we're willing to give it to you. Anyway, one doesn't have to be an athlete in order to be an athletic director, right? You don't have to be an opera singer to be a voice coach. It's pretty well known. All right, very good. So we have here right now, and what about the emperor of the penguins? He's not in today, huh? All right, well, chief custodian. He'll be chief of the janitorial staff. He would love that. All right, my friends, there's a new course being unveiled today, unleashed at Prager University. And that is, it's titled, but the title should not mislead you into thinking that it's only for those who are religiously inclined, because the point is far larger even than the Bible itself. But the title is, The Most Important Verse in the Bible. 01:12:41 Speaker 2: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to lifeaudio.com to find dozens of other Faith Center podcasts and their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.