A Night At the Palladium: Dennis Prager - Happiness is Not a Feeling: It's a Moral Obligation

here at st petersburg college we are just extremely excited to have mr prager here it is an honor and after speaking with him backstage you guys are definitely in for a treat now dennis prager is a national syndicated columnist and best-selling author he is the host of the dennis prager show a worldwide lecturer on a variety of topics including personal and social issues morality and religion he has appeared on numerous television programs including the cbs evening news and the today show dennis prager is also a visiting fellow at the hoover institution at stanford university now without further ado please join me in welcoming mr dennis prager to the stage thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you wow well well given that uh ovation i'll just take questions why bother with the lecture i i'm very touched uh thank you very much it's always a little intimidating when people like you in advance then you have to live up to something it's a it's a it's a bit of a burden uh dr white uh thank you so much for making this possible thank you demian and the student government that meant a lot to me that the students wanted me it's uh everybody knows you you want the next generation to take your uh work seriously what is it they once said about any author they would trade in a hundred readers today for one reader a hundred years from now it's uh and i understand that with my my fifth book coming out in in three weeks that's uh i certainly uh i would like a hundred now and a hundred and a hundred years actually i don't wanna get you off the hook and say well prager wants a reader 100 years from now i won't bother but uh i i i am very touched that the students played a big role so thank you for having me i was listening to denny ann because you might think that uh introductions are an easy thing to give that is not true i will just share with you one given to me by a student about 10 12 years ago at the university of colorado colorado university at boulder and uh she was very nervous and she announced to the audience that this was the first time she was speaking publicly which became evident very quickly and uh she uh she was actually reading uh from a a little bio of me and the bio said uh dennis prager that the los angeles times has written that dennis prager is obsessed uh with uh with good and evil and uh which is fine that's true i am obsessed with good and evil but she introduced me as a dennis prager who was obsessed with doing evil unfortunately the first thing i thought was how does she know that's not true that's not true i'm naughty but not evil so there's a very big difference as uh most of you know so uh anyway ever since then i have been very very careful to listen carefully and no so thank you denny ann and again thank you to the students i would talk to you about happiness and you might wonder maybe you don't but you should or many would why would the ethics department and god bless this college for having an ethics department and ethics classes it is so necessary it's a it's a beacon saint petersburg college from everything that i have been able to learn about it and why would somebody speak about happiness under the rubric of ethics you would think that if anybody were brought in if a department were to bring somebody in to speak about happiness it would be the psychology department or perhaps the philosophy department but why the ethics department but that is entirely correct because what i have to bring to the issue that has been written about and spoken about so often i have something a little different or perhaps even a lot different to bring to this discussion and that is that happiness is not a psychological state or a feeling as much as it is a moral obligation and this is what i i never tire of speaking about because i believe that if people took this seriously it would change the world and that's a that's a big terminology uh a big term but it is it is true it would change everything it would change the micro those of you who hear my radio show no i think in terms of micro and macro micro is the personal macro is the global the philosophical et cetera the things that are society-wide it changes both totally and the easiest way that i have if i'm given one minute to explain why it's a moral obligation to be as happy as possible and at or at least to act as happy as possible and i will be emphasizing the actions in the talk but the biggest reason or the easiest way to explain the reason is to ask anybody who was raised by an unhappy parent anybody raised by an unhappy parent doesn't have to be both parents in fact it usually isn't as i will explain in a moment ask them what it was like to be raised by an unhappy parent and immediately you will understand why i say it's a moral obligation that we owe it to others to be as happy as possible ask anybody married to an unhappy person what that is like and then uh for those of you unmarried students i presume most of the students are not married the laughter you heard was a bittersweet laughter it was the laughter of unfortunate recognition so let me let me explain why to those who don't know most people are married to a moody person most marriages are intermarriages a moody and a non-moody have married on rare occasions a non-moody excuse me a non-moody and a non-moody marry very rarely never has a moody married a moody so there is something to be said about that and that is this the moody may be miserable but they're not stupid they never marry one of their own isn't that amazing i mean think of all the couples you who know couples know there's no booty married to the you know mr and mrs moody you know it doesn't happen what you have though is a moody and a non-moody which by the way leads to a very interesting question we all know why the moody marry the non-moody they're not stupid but why do the non-moody marry the moody are they stupid it's a very interesting question and by the way i have grappled with it a good part of my life thinking this issue through why does a non-moody married a moody everybody prefers non-moody people everybody the moody prefer it the non-moody prefer it so then why and i think that a part of it a big part of it is that a lot of the happier amongst us want to make others happy and we think that when we marry the moody we will change them what generally happens is we get changed because after a while the happy are worn down and and uh while you're laughing and it's good that you are because you know one of my mottos is it's you know we have two choices here to laugh or to cry and i much prefer laughing to crying but it's a very serious and very sad subject because moody spouses hurt marriages and sometimes killed the marriage the marriage may go on but it's still killed that's why i beg the moody i beg you and and i it comes from the sincerest deepest part of my heart as well as my mind to change your behavior i'm not asking you to change your feelings but i but i am asking you to monitor your behavior because of the effects that it does have on the the person that you're married to it's a it's it's a real obligation i and i feel the obligation i i already said to children i spoke about to spouses let's continue the family and then we'll go to non-family to your parents as a parent let me say and every one of you who was a parent knows you can have 12 children if one is miserable it affects you what is what is the old saying a parent is no happier than their least happy child there's some truth to that by the way my advice to parents is not to allow that dictum to reign in your life at a given point you have to say my daughter my son is unhappy or miserable or whatever i'm sorry or as one caller said to me on on my show and i just have to say a thank you to my callers because as much as i hope people have learned from me i promise you i have learned from callers and emailers to me people have opened their hearts in email i mean people have told me things they don't tell their spouses that is how open people have felt they could be with me in part because i'm very open and a caller called up and she said i have a daughter i think about 30 years old i don't remember but you know well into adulthood and she said i finally decided dennis the following i didn't break her i can't fix her that was brilliant that was truly an insight if your adult child is miserable you didn't do it okay maybe when they're six you have responsibility for how happy they are maybe that's a maybe but at 30 they have responsibility for whether they're unhappy or happy at what age does it does it end i'll never forget the this is a new thing in life by the way holding uh adults of your childhood responsible now i'm not talking about children who are molested and so on most people are not molested too many are but still most are not i'm just talking about the normal parent who is human and therefore frail and has has his or her own issues just as your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents do i remember my first radio was in los angeles where i live and i was the moderator of a very very popular show on sunday evenings and uh it was on the abc radio station in los angeles had a very big audience and it was where i was the moderator of a priest a rabbi and a minister each week different ones each week i did it for 10 years i loved every minute of those 10 years loved it one of the things i learned it was which is worthy of its own lecture if you want to have me back is sometimes i actually said you know what we should rename we should rename this show the show was called religion on the line i said we should rename it to the ex catholic hour i i was i was totally it was like a new world had opened to me about and i say this with love and respect as any of you know how many people are still walking around at 80 angry at their nuns for wrapping their knuckles when they were 11. you know i'm jewish and you know we were none of the rabbis at my jewish school level wrap my knuckles one threw me over two desks however i just want you to know that they you know no no no rulers was nothing you know yeah and that was it and by the way let me just tell the students here not only was that allowed when i was a kid if i told my parents the rabbi threw me over two desks they would have thrown me over three desks so i never told them now let me really drive the students nuts i thought he was right i didn't think of going to personnel there was no personnel there was just another rabbi who would have asked what did you do to cause the rabbi to do that the different it was a different world and in some ways worse but in a lot of ways better undoubtedly and uh and so this was this was a different way of of raising people and so you have these catholics who were still telling me 70 years later that well they're still bitter at the church because the nun wrapped their knuckles or whatever and i think sir you know it's time to grow up at 80. with all respect uh i don't think you should measure uh a 2000 year institution by the nun when you were 11. just the thought you know you might want to consider it before you die and uh and so it it was it was just an amazing thing to to witness so we live we live in in this age of it's not me it's my parents it's my teachers it was my clergy it was some adult that's nonsense as true as it is it's still nonsense of course of course parents have an effect on you i'm i'm not i'm not a nut of course that's true but it's time for you to have an effect on you that's the point of becoming an adult hello i am an adult i no longer hold my parents responsible that is the way it should be by the way in that regard i have to say i understand that wall street journal had an article a number of years ago how many non-jews are now having bar mitzvahs and it's becoming no it has a very interesting thing and i totally recommend it when i was 13 you will you'll found this fascinating whatever your religion or no religion when you what is bar mitzvah most people don't know this most jews don't even know this but more jews know this than non-jews 13 means you become in a male you become a man 12 you become a woman do you know what the parent says in synagogue at that great moment they say a blessing to god that i am no longer the one who pays for the sins of my child that is what it means so at 13 i knew if i mess up i answer to god not they that's a very transformative moment wow you mean if i cheat on a test i can't blame my parents if i rob a convenience store i i i can't say my parents messed me up if i if i bully a kid in in school i can't say well oh you know i don't have good parents that's right can't say it you can say it all you like but it doesn't count this notion by the way what does this have to do with happiness to get back to the theme here uh is that you can't be happy until you take responsibility for your life that's the point any therapist who keeps blaming the parents after the first three sessions the first three sessions blame anybody you want by session four if he's not telling you or she's not telling you you're responsible for your misery you are wasting your money worse than wasting your money you're actually doing harm to yourself first three sessions you could blame the your parents all you like then it's time for you to grow up and take your own life into your hands the captain of a ship is happier than the person who thinks they have no say in where it is moving be the captain of your own ship so back to the moral obligation in the micro realm so i began with spouse to spouse parent to child parents oh children to be happy you know what my son i'll never forget my older son said at my 50th birthday party uh we had a i don't know why i had it i was miserable but i didn't show it i i didn't inflict anybody but i you know i thought i i thought at 50 you know and now what now the countdown is to the this to death until now it was till adulthood you know like and then anyway i had this birthday party big birthday party so my my older son got up and you know what he said and he was a teenager which uh you know teens are not thrilled with their parents almost by definition so i even said david you know it's totally up to you if you want to speak and he knew i meant it if he didn't want to speak he didn't have to speak and that was fun the younger one was too young and and so uh the older one got up and he said i just want to say i want to thank my father for one thing more than anything else and i had no idea what he would say and it brought tears to my eyes that he's always happy and i had i had no idea what he would say i thought you know that he's given me a nice life he's been loving this nothing that he's that that that made such an impact on him that it does you have the the moody don't realize the impact that they have on those around them so this is parent to child spouse to spouse child to parent because of the infliction of pain on a parent if you are unhappy chronically unhappy moody etc that's the family that's the family now let's go to the non-family co-workers i have co-workers even though the in almost the loneliest job in the world as a talk show host i i tell you how lonely it is it's um you uh you you will appreciate this from the answer that i give to young people who say you know i'd love to be a talk show host uh what do i do i said i'll tell you what you do i want you to go into a room periodically alone and be interesting for three hours if you can do that you got the makings of a talk show host it takes a slightly perverse personality to actually be able to do that i did my last two days of broadcast i was in connecticut giving a lecture i came here from from the new york area and uh i i've actually broadcast i carry this machine i broadcast from my hotel room i mean there was nobody i promised there was nobody in my hotel room sounds funny nobody was in my hotel room except me and you know but i was trying to be still be funny and alive and enthusiastic and so on but uh the fact is when i am at the home studio in los angeles i have an engineer i have a producer and so that's at least two people who are present and uh and in that area of the station are two others who work in that area who are not not working on my show but on other shows of the station and i know that my cheerful mood has had a profound impact on all of them but here is the more dramatic thing and i it's one of the only things that i wouldn't say on radio uh that i that i will say outside of radio and that is we have a an engineer the engine is extremely important to a show extremely important whatever you hear is goes through them all the sound effects the in and out the telling me how much time i have left signaling to me when i go back on if they do a tremendous amount in the past and i'd this is not to uh bad mouth anybody but i've never had a cheerful engineer he is and he has actually and i am almost uh ashamed to admit this he has affected the show the show is better because my engineer is happy how is that for power the power of a happy person you'd think i mean a show was a show so the guy's not happy back there what it makes a huge difference i come across livelier i come across happier more enthusiastic as much as i was in the past i am more so thanks to him that's the power with your co-worker you change the work area based on your mood whatever your work is whatever your work is i believe this is true everywhere i think it's true in the elevator i have a moral compunction or moral compulsion i should say to cheer my fellow elevator riders i do i do now i i know i know that in about five percent one out of 20 times my attempt will fail and the person will immediately get off the elevator in fear that may happen i don't care for the other 19 it is worth it and i will make jokes what else happens in an elevator right what do people do they stand still as lot's wife they're pillars of salt in the elevator and looking at the diode numbers light up and folks let's be honest what is there to look at are you wondering what's going to come after four look at that five oh i can't believe it people stare at that more than at the keno board in vegas i i often think i i so i will say are you betting on those numbers you know or something like that and you know some people will start laughing and i go so whatever it might be or i will be the guy to press the buttons because i was in first and i will say what floor what floor what floor and then i will say just want you to know i am the new elevator man here in the building i hope you'll put in a good word with management so i i have rehearsed lines even to make it fun and it's very sweet to see people start smiling it's a gift that i have given to total strangers for 30 seconds but it's a big gift and it's a gift the gift of a happy disposition is a gift to all who come in contact with you i live on airplanes almost literally and i i don't expect nor want to talk to the passenger next to me i have a lot of work to do but i expect to say something like hello good morning and i will always ask you know are you from here are you from where we're flying to ask a couple of questions and then go back to my work the person who doesn't answer makes the flight more tense right i'm don't glade you you feel similarly of course you feel similarly why would you not so i could stop now and i think i would have made a compelling case for the need to act happy however you feel and i will talk to that issue of despite your feelings momentarily but i haven't made the full case i've made half now i'm going to make the other half i made the micro case the micro is the people in our life i have a macro case to make for happiness and that is the happy if you hear my happiness hour on uh either of my stations here in sarasota or tampa every friday my second hour uh eastern coast time i'll be one o'clock and i make i make the statement why do i devote an hour each week even the week of 9 11 on friday i did not cancel my happiness hour i figured if there's any week that needs the happiness hour it was this week and i say the happy make the world better and the unhappy make the world worse not just their parents their children and their spouse and their co-worker and their elevator passengers the world happy people make the world better the unhappy make it worse think for a moment do you think to take the current uh obvious evil of of islamist terror uh bombers do you think the happiest muslims join i am so happy today it is great to be alive i'm going to kill myself right clearly not the happiest did the happiest germans join the nazi party oh i'm in such a great mood i'm going to be a nazi i love humanity i love life i'm going to be a nazi i mean it doesn't happen did the happiest the people who joined the ku klux klan were they the happiest oh i i just i can't wait what a great life i'm gonna put a sheet over my head this is this is happiness no i mean think about it think think about your own life when do you most want to bring joy to others when you are the happiest if something good happens to you you want good to happen to others so it's a very very big deal with regard to how we affect the world not just how we affect the people in our lives now do you see why i say with absolute seriousness it's a moral obligation it is so much a moral obligation that it is it is become in my life something that i now admire when i meet people with happy dispositions by the way whether they're 15 or 85 every age has a battle to be happy every age you know that i mean teens are notorious teens are notorious right for angst and oh oh oh unto me my parents my siblings my life woe into me my teachers i don't know what i was gonna be i'm confused i uh my boyfriend doesn't like me my girlfriend doesn't like me i've been bullied like like it's brand new bullying and a brand new problem for young people you know what are there 11 americans who were not bullied when they were kids the only reason i wasn't bullied is i was born six foot four i mean i i you know who's going to pick on me but uh everybody's bullied it's just that's just the way it's just the way it's not it's not defensible but it's universal and it should be stopped but i think we're still there's a certain hysteria over it but that's a separate issue for another time and this is how we should be in life this is how we have to regard it and how we have to act let me tell you about the transformation in my own life on this matter i did not always believe happiness was a moral issue it never even occurred to me i thought happiness was exactly what most people think it is a feeling you feel happy you don't feel happy not only that but i was certain that people who lectured and wrote on happiness were basically snake oil salesmen that the only people who got happier thanks to these books and lectures on happiness were the people who got paid to write books and lecture on happiness what a deal i'm happy why aren't you as you cash your royalty check or your speech speaking check that's the way i viewed it but life teaches you a lot of things if you allow it to that's a big if so about 22 years ago i was invited to ucla uh by the uh the rabbi of uc you know there's a priest there's a minister you know the who minister to the kids of their their religion so a rabbi ucla called me up said dennis because i had written two books on judaism prior to my other books so he said dennis these kids the kids know you from the radio uh i'd like you to come and speak here to the jewish kids at ucla i said ah rabbi i'd be honored i assume uh you want me to speak on religion or on judaism he said oh no nobody will show up which is a sad truth and uh i i acknowledge that immediately i said so uh uh what do you want me to speak on he said uh uh so he said something uh what was it what did he say so he said something happy i said like what he said well happiness and i said well but but happiness is a serious problem and to which he said great title that's how my book got its title from the first lecture i gave on happiness from the rabbi's response to me about about what a great title happiness is a serious problem he wanted me to speak on something light i said it was i like what he said happiness i said no happiness not light happiness is serious problem great title i gave the speech i prepared very strongly because i was sure it's the only time i'll ever speak on happiness and uh i gave the speech and i liked it so much if i may say i did something i had never done before and have never done since and i've given thousands of lectures i listened to the lecture after i gave it and i liked it so much i kept saying to myself good point that is a good point i'm going to adopt that in my own life it was as if i was listening to joe schmoe over there i didn't even i wasn't listening to me that's how good it was and how it affected me and so what i did was then and today people subscribe to my lectures they get them they used to get them first on cassette then on cd now on cd or download and you get about every other month of the best lectures that i give i record and we make it available for uh for people who want to get them so that was it i was sure that this was the end of my happiness speaking career six months later i got a call from the literary editor or articles editor of red book magazine the women's magazine it's still published and i get the phone i pick up the phone i say hello is this dennis prager yes dennis prager who speaks on happiness i gave one speech she said uh i heard your speech i am the literary editor of red book magazine in and i i'm in new york i said really i was not a good salesman for me like the whole time i was i was shocked i i so i said really she said yeah i said oh do you subscribe to my lectures should i never heard of you in my life i i said i didn't even know you you i didn't know anything but i heard you on new york radio i said you heard me on new york radio said you didn't know it turns out that a local station there no longer in existence for good reason did something completely illegal not to mention in our ethics department unethical they broadcast the entire hour speech they never not only didn't pay me they never even asked my permission however these crooks did the greatest favor for me ever done professionally so she i said oh really wow she said well i was so impressed i sat in my car on a cold new york night in front of my apartment building to find out who is this person thank god at least the station announced it was me and not one of the guys at the station you know i i could see them doing it so she looked she find me this is you know pre-internet it was she looked she searched finally found me so she said would you write an article for red book on happiness and i said well i i i guess so again not i didn't know what to say i don't know i i don't even know i had one speech do i have an article and then she said oh good how was three thousand dollars and i give you my word of honor what went through my mind i was right who gets happy that's right i had never felt so confirmed in a view in my life folks let me explain to you i had written prior to that for places like commentary magazine a very serious journal of politics and thought you know what i got paid for writing for commentary six copies of commentary that was it they came in the mail nice freshly printed six copies to give to friends to show that i was printed so that's what i was used to 3 000 22 years ago what is that a hundred thousand dollars today i mean you know so i said yeah no no all that's fine that's fine i mean the woman could have said 11 i would have said fine 3 000 that's months of mortgage that's how i looked at it because in in la that's how you think will it cover my mortgage and so i wrote it and then i was sure that's it after it was printed readers digest called me can we exert can we abridge your article in our international editions and i thought and i really was excited you know me in finnish you know i uh spanish portuguese i was very and i was very excited i said of course go right ahead then i got a call from the guy who had been my book agent for my first two books and he said dennis i'm getting calls from publishers he said really for what i didn't even know what he was referring to for a book on happiness i said you got to be kidding richard all i have i'm lucky i had one speech in me and one article i don't have a book he said dennis it really had an impact i said i'll tell you what richard i'll give a course in l.a on happiness if i think that i had enough to say in eight sessions of one and a half hours each that's 12 hours and i don't bull so it's not fat if i have 12 hours of substance i'll write you a book i gave the course so richard calls me back well what do you say i said i'm still not convinced i need to give 16 sessions and then i gave a 16 session course in la on happiness and then i thought wow people are being affected here and i have a lot to say okay so i decided i'll write the book random house contracted me for the book they sent me a an advance i did not write the advance within the years given because i still didn't feel i had a book and i sent them their money back which is not easy because i spent it within a week and and so you know who doesn't what do you what or keep it in my pillow until i write the book so i sent them their money back and then ten years later harper collins published the book happiness is a serious problem here's the point i was transformed over the course of this time into having a belief that it was just a psychological state to realizing this is a very serious and important subject and that it had massive moral connotations and that's i was transformed against my own instinct to think of this as a moral obligation now let me talk to you about the key here and that is behavior over feelings and on occasion i have given this talk to students and this is the hardest part for a lot of young americans to fully accept and anyone who has a problem with this i am used to being different with have no fear i i will treat you with utmost respect i would love anybody with or obviously anyone who's not a student who has a problem with it to uh to speak up here is the key the only people who care if i feel happy are really uh or were really my parents my wife and to uh you know in other words my friends and my kids that's it and maybe if you have a therapist your therapist because they don't want you to be that happy they lose you so that was just a dig it was it was kidding so here's the story approximately six people on earth care if you're happy the other six billion don't everybody else only cares how you act okay very few people care how you feel and you don't care about how everybody else feels you care how they act if the guy next to me on the plane is feeling bad but acts nicely to me i'm sorry that he feels bad but i can't do anything about it but how he acts is what matters in all of life actions matter more than feelings all of life this is if i i try to have and those of you know me from radio i try to offer good messages every single day but if i if if i if somebody were to push me into a corner and say what is the biggest single message you have to give it is that behavior is more important than feelings that might not have been the message a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago but it is the most needed message today we are we live in a feelings based society and it is killing us killing us how do you feel about it how do you feel about it has substituted for is it right or is it wrong and that is the end that is the end that is the end of ethics there are no ethics either there are ethics that are independent of what you feel or there are no ethics then we should just call it what it is feelings i feel that it is important to build hospitals they feel that it is important to kill children what's the difference it's my feeling against theirs by the way talking to college students for the last decades decades that is the answer most give when i when i when i say well if it's all a matter of feelings then how do you know that the nazis were bad or any of the other mass murdering genocidal groups how do you know said we don't know it's our opinion so it's your opinion versus hitler's opinion correct one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter that's that's what you learn at college at most colleges i suspect not this one but uh no i mean it's sincerely but that's what you will learn at most colleges yeah well uh-huh they call this group a terrorist but others see them as freedom fighters so what so what the nazis called the freedom fighters terrorists would you not call the the french underground uh freedom fighters because others had a different opinion feelings are everything would you save your dog or a stranger if both were drowning i've asked this since i was first began lecturing and two-thirds of americans that i asked say certainly people at the college age and high school age and now they're they're now parents in uh uh well into their middle age and the two-thirds don't vote for the stranger i love my dog i don't love the stranger and i follow love what's bigger than love i'll tell you what's bigger than love values it's a lot that's bigger than love i love my dogs more than i love any of you with all respect but let me just tell you this if you were swimming and my dog was swimming and you were drowning and my dog was drowning i'd save you it wouldn't be a question because i wouldn't let my feelings guide me i would let my values guide me god help us if we let feelings guide us they are the worst guide to what is right the heart is a this seat of passion emotion appetite it's great i love feelings otherwise we're not human if we don't have feelings just don't let them guide you morally that's all by the way for those of you who want to ask let me already answer the question well venice what if hitler and a stranger excuse me hitler and a dog were drowning okay so let me answer that forget the dog if hitler were drowning alone i would throw in a cinder block so it's not it's not a question you're free to ask anything you like but i know i'm going to get that one so i just figured i'd answer it now the issue is stranger i don't know who the stranger is that's what stranger means feelings are not a good guide to anything including to happiness most of us most of us are a roller coaster in terms of feelings if you were to chart how you felt in terms of happiness in the course of a week you would look like a schizophrenic something gets you down you didn't get enough sleep you're down you you didn't uh something better happened at work you're down something good happened to work you're up your kid said something hurtful you're down you said your kid said daddy i love you you're up right that's how it works so then nobody's happy or unhappy everybody's both by the way everybody is both in terms of feelings that's the way it is as the dear mother the late dear mother of my high school friend joseph talashkin with whom i wrote my first two books we were in high school together in brooklyn new york we were sitting in her kitchen she was what i call a philosopher housewife very bright woman so we were talking about the kids in class we thought were happy or not she overheard the discussion closed the refrigerator door and said boys let me tell you something the only happy people i know are people i don't know well i want that to sink in i will say nothing for a moment it's brilliant it was a brilliant line the only happy people i know are people i don't know well what was she saying she wasn't saying the literal sense that there were no happy people on earth but she was saying that the more you know about anyone the more you know how much pain they have in their life that's what she's saying so the people you think are walking around happy-go-lucky life's just a blast you don't know them you don't know their pains you don't know their demons how is it so often i have heard from a couple that their best friends divorced and they were shocked how are you shocked about your best friend's marriage being so awful don't know it really shocked us because people did they didn't level about that it doesn't matter what it is do you know the demons that that afflict any given individual money envy sex i mean if the list is endless of the demons that that are in anybody alcohol drugs are the obvious ones there are less obvious ones or the pain that people still feel over so yes there is real pain from childhood that people still feel my wife was raised by a man who told her that she was stupid and ugly with uh all candor she's beautiful and brilliant didn't matter didn't matter i i call myself the auntie jim that's what i call i'm the anti-gym in her life i'm being totally open with you about my own marriage because all i keep telling her is how beautiful and how brilliant she is which is a fact that means to me it's as much a fact as the earth is round but when you have your parents in you the rest of your life see i understand that parents can mess around with you but she didn't allow that to dictate her life but it still messes up with her feelings and psyche that voice can never really leave i understand that but you would never know that if you met her it would be inconceivable to you and and or in my life or in anybody else's life that's why by the way when you know how true that line from the late helen talloskin is you will never envy anyone never an envy is one of the most corrosive things regarding happiness you won't envy because you don't know what's going on you have no clue and the more you know about people the more you know how much pain there is that is why the the moody and the unhappy walk around thinking that those who walk around happy didn't have their pain baloney baloney let me tell you you're wrong a lot of the people you meet who act happy have had it worse than you that's the point and you need to know that i'll never forget this was during the uh the book tour for this book which uh which was uh 12 years ago happiness is a serious problem i went to a station and i won't even say where where it was because the person is still broadcasting and is very popular in that part of the country and he was quite young then in his 30s and he was a big big hit in a major city in this country and i went on a show to talk about my book and i saw a picture on his desk of a very beautiful young woman and beautiful children and i said uh oh is that uh is that your wife and children he said yes and i remember thinking this guy has it all i in other words i had a reaction against my own mind and what i had written in my book this guy has it all great career he's a big hit at this age doing well beautiful wife beautiful kids and then in the course this was the beginning of the of the internet uh being really popular we were talking about our mutual love of of the internet so i said i'll tell you you have no idea i put in multiple sclerosis and you have no idea how much i learned i said well why do you put in multiple sclerosis because my wife has it and then i remember thinking dennis you're an idiot i really do i lacerated myself you dennis you violated your own rule you didn't know anything except the picture and on that picture you know how many young girls think that these actresses in hollywood i mean i live in l.a you know we see them come you know so to speak greyhound bus and airplane after airplane coming because they so believe that the starlet's life is a happy life read any virtually any memoir of a major hollywood star and you will read about among the unhappiest lives you have ever read the number of happy stars is very small not very large but understandably you see them beaming at the academy awards and then they say the thing that i most hate the woman wins the academy award and then she says with utter sincerity i just want to tell all the young women of this country all the girls of this country you just follow your star and you will succeed like i did but it's not true one woman a year wins best actress one wins best supporting actress and that's it there are 150 million females in the country to win an academy award though it's just it's not true what it's done it's not good advice follow your star maybe but you're not going to end up here you will end up as a waitress on sunset boulevard it's like a routine thing i do with everyone ever i have a waiter or waitress in l.a i said so i take it you're an actor yeah yeah that's right and that's fine i respect them they're working i respect them completely but i just want you to know that 99 of those who follow their star to hollywood are waitressing and waiting and that's fine too but but reality is important so behavior is what matters not the feeling because everybody's filled with pain everybody's filled with dark feelings everybody has what uh hayan potok the great novelist late novelist wrote with the 3 am questions you know you wake up or you can't sleep at night what are you thinking happy thoughts who thinks happy thoughts at 3am anybody ever awaken from laughing what a tree it was hilarious i'm so sad i got up i don't remember having a happy dream ever and if you have a happy dream it's it's it's one in a million i mean who dreams happy things there's a lot of darkness in all of us that's why how you behave matters so here is the 64 000 question objection isn't that inauthentic this is the question that i posed especially young people who have latched on to the charge of hypocrisy when meeting adults if you don't act how you feel you're a hypocrite here's the answer if you don't act how you feel you are an adult and it's good to be an adult it's more fun to be an adult than to be a child every adult who is an adult and who doesn't want to be a child will acknowledge that they just i was just read on the air the other day time magazine published a survey done around uh around the western world at least and uh they the it was it was wildly disproportionate how few people thought their happiest years were when they were a kid overwhelmingly they said their happiest was 30 they they didn't reach their maximum happiness till 33 doesn't mean it goes down after that but they didn't get to any real level of happiness till 33. now every everybody's different i thought 33 was great my i remember being particularly a bullied in my 20s i had an unhappy childhood as it happens it's one of the reasons i could write a book happiness is a serious problem if happiness came totally naturally to me like breathing how can i give anybody advice the whole point p i have a happy demeanor it is worked on and by the way the benefits i will come to but let me deal with this inauthentic argument it's inauthentic yes it's inauthentic in the sense that it's not how you feel but let me give it's not a gross example but it's not one i like to give to people during lunch bad breath and body odor are authentic showering and brushing are inauthentic why do people brush their teeth gargle with mouthwash chew mint gum use deodorant take a shower every day you don't have to shower every day it's not it's not a hygiene thing you could shower very rarely and be just as healthy but you would stink now here's the thing you don't care if you stink that's one of god's gifts to us we don't we are not repelled by our own odors but everybody else is so you brush away you shower away your bad odors so too you should shower away and brush away you're a bad mood that's all it's the same thing i see no difference whatsoever you want to be authentic it's authentic to belch and flaculate that's really authentic he's inauthentic he holds back his farting i i i any of you have raised little boys you know how long it takes to tell them not to fart in public my boys would go in the living room spread their cheeks and make the sound they thought it was the funniest thing in the world and to an eight-year-old boy it is the funniest thing in the world except if you didn't teach him not to they would do it at 28. let me tell you something if your husband doesn't do that you should give him a hug today i just want you to know he has suppressed a lot by not doing that it's very hard to make a man a civilized man so this inauthentic thing doesn't work that doesn't mean that you hide from your closest friends an unhappy feeling that you have i have extremely close friends i don't know how you get through life without close friends i don't i i am now blessed and i i've i've had my difficulties in this arena but i am now blessed truly with a extraordinarily wonderful wife and and and happy marriage uh but uh i i understand that people may not be and in life you can't act on how you feel you have to brush it away as it were and you have the this objection of the inauthenticity and my friends i want you to say what's bothering you to your husband or to your wife i want you to tell your best friends you know i'm having real issues with the kids or with the kid or i'm having real issues with whatever i think that if couples opened up about their marriage to one couple or two couples a lot of divorce would be would be obviated would be reduced and you know why because most not all i believe in divorce when things get terrible but a lot of problems are universal i i always give this example of it's in the book too it's a i make up these two couples couple a and couple b so a couple a ha they're gonna meet for dinner at a restaurant the two couples kapolei is a big fight they don't talk to each other in the car they're angry at each other they get to the restaurant couple b coincidentally also had a very big fight don't talk to each other angry at each other in the car the two couples meet at the restaurant and the conversation goes as follows hey how you doing great great how you doing great great during dinner honey is this delicious sweetheart could you pass the salt honey this is some restaurant darling it's really a picture winner this is what happens in the cars going home couple a did you see how happy couple b is why can't we be a little more like them couple b did you see how happy couple a is why couldn't we be a little more like them now imagine if they got to the restaurant these are close friends after all and the conversation went like this hey guys how you doing well okay but you know what we had a real we had a real fight uh big fight uh prior you did no kidding so did we you did too no kidding what'd you guys fight about she says i never listen when she speaks really that's what she says you're laughing and then they would have also been laughing so what became a terrible evening and a burden on the marriage all of a sudden became a little laughable maybe it's like fairly common that wives don't think their husband listen by the way let me just tell you women it's not true no no on behalf of men i want to i want to make this thing clear don't clap yet all right we do listen we just don't remember that's because we don't remember anything anybody says we remember stock quotes and baseball statistics now you asked your husband what did dimaggio bat in 1950 even though he was born in 1970 he will still know what number was babe ruth who doesn't know that if you're an american male you're pretty much likely to know that women on the other hand remember everything and that's their burden by the way there's proof of this this is a very great great you know my view on studies either they confirm what common sense suggests or they're wrong this one was a very good study common sense immediately reacted and makes sense but i didn't know it before i heard the study i think it was university of wisconsin i'm not certain boys were taken male students put in alone in a room for hours nothing no no nothing electronic no books nothing just four walls and a chair they come out they're asked what uh what did you think about girls put in few hours nothing to read nothing to look at just four walls and a chair what did you think about the boys answered sports and sex some of us don't understand the sports part but that's a separate issue and the girls this was is not revelatory it usually illicits a yawn the girls reviewed conversations and i remember when i heard that i thought wow under pain of torture i could not review a conversation which by the way has led me to a realization and that is if we could swap brains for a day this is what would happen if men got a woman's brain for a day they would all kill themselves the noise the sheer noise it scares me it scares me but if women got a men's brain they would go free at last free at last when you ask your husband what are you thinking about and or your son and he says nothing he's being truthful you think he's trying to get around he's not getting around anything he was thinking of nothing we're very similar to dogs in that way now the the beauty of your laughter is that this is because it's so true now if couples could speak to other couples maybe a lot of the time they'd start laughing because well maybe she's not a whatever name you want to use maybe he's not a whatever name you want to use maybe she's just female and he's just male and it comes with the territory that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to work on ourselves i'm a very big believer in fighting your own nature male or female of course but still having somebody to talk to therefore when i say act despite your feelings that doesn't mean you shouldn't relay what you feel that doesn't mean you constantly do it that's another thing you tell your friends you're unhappy about something and then move on we don't we we want friends to bring joy into our life not misery and that's something one has to be mature enough to understand where is the balance between confidentiality and openness which there should be and it permeate the whole thing let me give the worst case scenario the loss of a child i have talked to more people who have lost children than almost anybody well then anybody i think who was not in the field because i have talked about it on the radio and people have written to me and so on i mean we all it's the nightmare of any of us who were parents and i'm sure that there are people here who have experienced that nightmare and i learned many years ago that it was not uncommon for people who had lost a couple that had lost a child to also then gradually lose their friends when i first heard it i thought what kind of friends are those they lose a child so they they abandon them when i don't understand now i do understand it some people who lose their children and it's totally understandable but it's not advisable that's all that becomes the defining element of their life and then you are into joy then in your friend's life they want to share your pain that's why they're friends they're not bad guys some people are bad guys most people are not bad guys so we have our pain and we should express it but you can't pickle it it's not good for you i mean there has to be a period of time where you're just preoccupied with such a loss it's totally understandable but i really do believe yes you do talk to your friends about your unhappinesses you don't dwell on it you talk about it but beyond that it is still how you act and finally let me let me make the selfish case i've made the moral case now let me conclude with the selfish case for acting happy first of all there is a tremendous pleasure in bringing others happy if you're a normal person bringing others happiness i i gotta i'm perfectly honest with you i get a kick out of the reactions of people in the elevator i do i feel better about me and about life that i have brought some cheer to other strangers who don't know me from adam for 30 seconds or one minute in an elevator it is good for you because bringing joy to others is about as big a gift as you can ever give to anybody number two happy people attract people unhappy people repel people and everyone needs people in their lives so here is the irony you know the rich get richer and the poor get poorer the happy get happier and the unhappy get unhappier the happy get happier because they bring all these people into their lives who want to be with them the unhappy repel people and they're not in their lives because they don't really want to be with them that's a very big difference those who are looking to get married one of the greatest single things one of the greatest two three things you could do for your life is have a cheerful demeanor it attracts people you're married it attracts friends you're unmarried attracts potential mates there is no argument against this that i know of none in every area of life i am a behaviorist every area of life act good you'll be gooder act loving you'll be more loving listen uh i'm going to say something that's that's probably the most controversial thing i think i ever said i wrote a two-part series i write a column every week it's on the internet you can certainly easily find it and at the end of the year each year i write about micro matters as opposed to what's going on in the world and a couple of years ago i wrote a two-part column titled when a woman is not in the mood let me tell you and with this i do conclude something i learned from a rabbi of mine in fourth grade at a religious jewish school and i applied it to sex in marriage the rabbi did not have this in mind i promise fourth grade the rabbi announces all right boys it is time for the afternoon prayers i walked over to him fourth grade and i said rabbi fostag excuse me i'm not in the mood for afternoon prayers the rabbi did barely he had never heard mood and prayer in the same sense so he you know he was clearly flummoxed and then finally he said dennis prager is not in the mood for the afternoon prayers so what the man changed my life i'm still not in the mood for afternoon prayers but he did he changed my life this is very important it's the only thing i remember from fourth grade but it changed my life that's the answer to most moods so what including sex in marriage if you're married to a good man and and all the other things that are around it and i'm not talking every time and i'm not talking if you're you know just in a terrible mood from the kids or beyond tired or sick or obviously there are all sorts of of of factors but all things being considered mood can't be the only reason it's not a good idea because the effect on your marriage and on him is so positive for you to give in that arena that why would you allow mood to stop as i said and i got i got the forgive the metaphor crucified on the internet for this which i expected that's fine uh and uh and you know because i made the analogy what if your husband woke up and said you know i'm not in the mood to go to work who is every man in or every woman in the mood to go to work every day i am but i'm abnormal not only abnormal i have an abnormal job all right i i'm very blessed it's one more i can't imagine of a wonderful job tell people what you think for three hours go around the country and say it i mean it's like a dream i admit it every day i pinch myself i i do but uh i totally understand that every day going to be in the mood what do you what do we do that's good just based on the mood maybe if you're in the mood for indian food rather than chinese food then have indian food it has no effect on anybody but where it has an effect on others mood can't direct you so i'm a behaviorist ray fine was the nazi commandant in uh the uh the uh uh what was it again schindler's list schindler's list he was interviewed in the new york times at the time and he said i can't wait till this film film shooting is over and the interviewer said why he said because i'm getting meaner that was powerful he acted like a nazi in a movie reading lines he's an actor and it was making him meaner off the set and uh who was moses again and ten commandments charlton heston charlton heston and i were were somewhat friendly he was the only actor that i actually did end up uh close with i uh we had similar views on a lot of things and and he listened to the show invited me to lunch and we had a relationship and i asked him once i said i'm curious i'll never forget this did acting moses affect you off and after the movie he said absolutely i felt that i had an image to maintain and i couldn't be irresponsible to it and he led a particularly wonderful fine decent life for that world and for any world how you act even in movies can affect who you are as a person so i say to you act happy despite how you feel you will make the world better you will make everybody around you better and yes you will make you better thank you very thank much thank you very much

Channel: St Petersburg College

Views: 556,749

Rating: 4.7875843 out of 5

Keywords: Prager, Happiness, Keith, Goree, lecture, Series, palladium, SPC, St. Petersburg College, KNL, KnowNoLimits, SPCOLLEGE, SPCSPCSPC, Palladium, in, St., Petersburg, education, educational, students, teacher, teachers, professor, professors, community, college, career, degree, online, Florida, learning, school, university, graduation, Students, Teachers, Professors, Education, Educational, community college, lesson., Campus

Id: GRjKnLIJXKw

Length: 75min 19sec (4519 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/ReasonFighter]

This speech is excellent! The whole dissertation is simply wonderful. I mean, it is light. It is luminous. It will illuminate you and make you a better person. Yes, it is that good.

It has been very difficult to decide what to highlight here because the entirety of the address is packed with useful and insightful ideas and concepts. But there are a few parts that need to be mentioned, especially in relation with some of the subjects that we, exmos, are concerned with.

So, here are the parts that have impacted my exmo side :)

• (Speaking about depending on others in order to be happy) We live in this age of "it's not me, it's my parents / it's my teachers / it was my clergy / it was 'some adult'." That's non-sense. As true as it is, it's still non-sense. Of course parents have an effect in you... But it's time for you to have an effect on you. That's the point of becoming an adult. [14:42]

• (Speaking about the person's responsibility for his/her own happiness) ...you mean if I cheat on a test, I can't blame my parents? If I rob a convenience store, I can't say my parents messed me up? If I bully a kid in school, I can't say "well, I didn't have good parents"? That's right... You can say it all you want, but it doesn't count... This notion is... that you can't be happy until you take responsibility for your life. [16:12]

• In all of life, actions matter more than feelings... Behavior is more important than feelings. That might not have been the message a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, but it is the most needed message today. We live in a feelings-based society and it is killing us. "How do you feel about it?" has substituted for "is it right or is it wrong?" and that is the end of ethics... Either there are ethics that are independent of what you feel, or there are no ethics. [40:28]

• (Speaking about the conflict between feelings and values/principles) Would you save your dog or a stranger if both were drowning? I've asked this since I first began lecturing, and two thirds of Americans that I've asked... don't vote for the stranger. "I love my dog, I don't love the stranger; and I follow love. What bigger than love?" I'll tell you what's bigger than love: values. There's a lot that's bigger than love. I love my dogs more than I love any of you, with all respect. But let me just tell you this: if you were swimming and my dog was swimming and you were drowning and my dog was drowning, I'd save you. It wouldn't be a question, because I wouldn't let my feelings guide me. I would let my values guide me. God help us if we let feelings guide us. They are the worst guide to what is right. The heart is a deceit of passion, emotion, appetite. It's great, I love feelings; otherwise we are not human if we don't have feelings. Just don't let them guide you morally. [42:45]

• So, here is the $64,000 question/objection: "Isn't that inauthentic?" This is the question that I pose to, especially, young people who have latched on to the charge of hypocrisy when meeting adults. "If you don't act how you feel, you are a hypocrite." Here is the answer: If you don't act how you feel, you are an adult... Bad breath and body odor are authentic. Showering and brushing are inauthentic... You don't have to shower every day. It's not a hygiene thing. You can shower very rarely and be just as healthy, but you would stink. Now, here's the thing: you don't care if you stink. That's one of God's gifts to us: we are not repelled by our own odors. But everyone else is. So, you brush away, you shower away your bad odors. So too, you should shower away and brush away your bad mood... You want to be authentic? It's authentic to belch and flatulate. That's really authentic... So, this inauthentic thing doesn't work... In life you can't act on how you feel. You have to brush it away, as it were. [53:46]

Again, if you can, listen to the whole thing. Or paste the video's URL into http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ in order to download just the audio and take it with you on your commute. Can't recommend it enough.

Thank you /u/hiking1950 for sharing it!