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Aug. 10, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
07:43
Happy People Do Not RIOT
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Now you realize how true what I've said every week for 20 years.
The happy make the world better, the unhappy make it worse.
That's correct.
That's the way it works.
I'm Dennis Prager.
This is the Happiness Hour.
Happiness is a moral issue, not just an emotional issue.
We are obligated to act happy even if we don't feel it because we cannot impose bad moods on others.
On the macro, happy people do not ruin the world.
Happy people do not riot.
Is that fair to say?
By definition, happy people do not riot.
I didn't say do not protest.
I said do not riot.
And there are many, many reasons for the widespread unhappiness.
in our society the biggest is no meaning in life with the death of religion and the death of belief in in America as the last best hope of earth as Lincoln put it what's left no pun intended because what's left is left those are the biggest There are a lot of other reasons for widespread unhappiness.
A lot of spoiled children.
Parents who raise children with the belief that the most important thing was that they always be happy.
And I'm the happiness guy.
It's ironic, isn't it?
Your task is not to make your child happy.
Your task is to make your child good.
Then they'll be happy.
That's the way it works.
You want your child happy at all times, you will, by definition, neglect their character.
In fact, I mean, as it happens, you would even neglect their health.
Oh, make you happy to have more ice cream?
Have more ice cream.
It's funny, though, they wouldn't do that on health.
They do it on character.
But they don't do it on health.
The other thing is parents wanted to be loved.
Parents should want to be parents, loved or not.
Your task is to be a parent.
So there are a lot of reasons for the widespread unhappiness in America.
We talk about them every week.
So I have not done an open line happiness hour since when?
Since May.
Three months.
I did an open line in May.
Interesting.
So yeah, that makes sense.
Four times a year.
You have to have stuff on your mind you'd like to talk about.
I'm sure there are challenges to your happiness right now.
I can't fix it, but we can talk about it.
Yeah.
May 8th.
Three months.
Is it three months exactly?
Yeah.
Basically.
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 How do you look at life differently today than you did?
Or America?
Or your children?
Or your spouse?
Or your own life?
Those are good subjects too.
But I want to deal with your happiness issues at this time.
I'll tell you mine, okay?
You know how open I am with you.
I am less happy.
I don't act it because I follow my own advice, but I am less happy because of my worries about this country.
There is no guarantee that a free society will remain free.
There is none.
That's the story, that's the historical record, isn't it?
There is no guarantee that the values that made the society possible will endure.
There are vast numbers of people who loathe them.
Objectivity, punctuality, personal responsibility.
Individuality, Judeo-Christian values, these were all posted as white values at an African-American museum in Washington.
Well, if they're being listed as white values as opposed to universally good values, that bothers me, and it does affect my happiness.
I never fake you.
I'm not going to patronize you.
I have too much respect for you.
Of course it's affected me.
We could lose this great country.
The world could lose it.
It could become another country.
Corrupt like so many others.
So I fight.
I spoke to you a lot about how fighting does give one some degree of Of happiness.
Because it is our task to do good in this world.
Whether we accomplish the task or not, it's in God's hands.
You know I'm writing a Bible commentary.
At the very end of the fifth book of the Torah, the first five books, the most important books, because they made Judaism and they made Christianity.
And they made the rest of the Bible, let's put it that way.
That's an easier way, perhaps, to understand the importance of the first five books.
And they end with Moses not getting into the Promised Land.
It's always struck me as a parable for all our lives.
Very, very few people see the promised land, or get into the promised land, whatever their promised land is.
Just the way it is in life, but it doesn't free you from the struggle.
You know, I wonder, as I'm thinking aloud here, I wonder if young Americans do not identify with America.
Think that all of those who died fighting for America died in vain.
If the country is systemically awful, why die for it, right?
I wonder what they would answer.
I suspect that most of these people don't celebrate Memorial Day anyway.
So what's on your mind?
That's the question here as we continue.
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