Dennis Prager Show - Everyone Has Flaws... But Also Gifts...
Aired: 2020-11-21
Duration: 06:28


=== What You Do With Your Nature (06:28) ===

[00:00:00]  Today's subject is your nature.
[00:00:02]  Everyone has a nature.
[00:00:07]  And no one has a nature without built-in flaws.
[00:00:13]  It doesn't exist.
[00:00:15]  By the way, no one has a nature without built-in gifts.
[00:00:19]  It goes in both directions.
[00:00:23]  I've never met anybody who had no gift.
[00:00:28]  There may be such a person.
[00:00:32]  So that's why, by the way, you have to ask, what do you do with your gifts?
[00:00:38]  That's where the nature part is not the only thing at work.
[00:00:45]  That's a conscious, volitional choice.
[00:00:49]  So I'm curious what you've done with your nature.
[00:00:53]  Do you know it?
[00:00:53]  Do your kids know their natures?
[00:00:58]  I was raised by a tough dad, and he constantly told me the flaws in my nature.
[00:01:07]  And I think in the long run, it probably helped.
[00:01:13]  It didn't feel good, but it also made me stronger.
[00:01:20]  All right, let's see what you're doing here.
[00:01:23]  Look at this.
[00:01:24]  That's really something.
[00:01:26]  How many people have realized they have negative stuff?
[00:01:32]  Anyway, this is provocative.
[00:01:34]  Woodstock, Georgia.
[00:01:35]  Kenny, hello.
[00:01:38]  Hello, Dennis.
[00:01:38]  How are you?
[00:01:39]  I'm well.
[00:01:41]  Yeah, I'm in the same bowl as you.
[00:01:43]  I'm from New Jersey.
[00:01:44]  And I remember my gym coach, he said in front of the class during attendance, Kenny, you're a weird little SHI. Forgive me.
[00:01:55]  Wait, wait, wait.
[00:01:56]  I want to get this clear.
[00:01:57]  He was the what?
[00:01:58]  The coach?
[00:01:59]  He was the gym coach.
[00:02:01]  The gym coach.
[00:02:04]  Did he say this in front of all the other kids?
[00:02:07]  Oh, yeah.
[00:02:09]  See, I want young people should understand how uncoddled we were.
[00:02:19]  Yeah.
[00:02:20]  And everybody made fun of me the whole day, but I won the state championship in tennis that year.
[00:02:25]  And because of that, I was just a big goofball, you know what I'm saying?
[00:02:28]  But because of that behavior, I ended up becoming a tennis pro and teaching because I like little kids and I'm goofy.
[00:02:35]  So I used it positively.
[00:02:38]  I love it.
[00:02:39]  I love it.
[00:02:40]  I'm telling you, the harm that has been done...
[00:02:48]  To two generations now by the coddling.
[00:02:53]  You know, one of my teachers in eighth grade, he was a rabbi actually, because I was at a yeshiva.
[00:03:00]  I was at a religious Jewish school, half the day Hebrew, half the day English.
[00:03:05]  And I never took school very seriously.
[00:03:09]  And I horsed around.
[00:03:11]  I didn't do anything mean.
[00:03:13]  But I horsed around in class.
[00:03:14]  I talked to my kid next to me in the next desk.
[00:03:18]  And he got tired of me one day.
[00:03:22]  And put down his cigarette.
[00:03:24]  Can you imagine that?
[00:03:25]  The guy smoked in class.
[00:03:30]  Eighth grade.
[00:03:33]  It meant nothing to us.
[00:03:36]  Anyway, he threw me over a desk.
[00:03:38]  And I remember thinking, again, this is eighth grade.
[00:03:42]  The other thing was a sophomore in high school.
[00:03:44]  And I remember thinking, I deserved it.
[00:03:49]  I also remember thinking, I'm bigger than him, and he threw me.
[00:03:53]  That's impressive.
[00:03:54]  He must have been really annoyed.
[00:03:57]  So every time I, or nearly every time I have told this story, people have said to me, what did your parents say?
[00:04:03]  What did your father say?
[00:04:06]  And I said, what are you, nuts?
[00:04:08]  You think I was going to tell my father the teacher threw me over a desk?
[00:04:12]  My father would have thrown me over a desk.
[00:04:18]  Because in those days the teacher was right.
[00:04:21]  Today that teacher would be arrested.
[00:04:24]  The cops would come and handcuff him.
[00:04:27]  For the smoking, what a great point!
[00:04:30]  Yeah, the guy killed all of us.
[00:04:32]  Now I know that's it.
[00:04:34]  I'm doomed.
[00:04:35]  The secondhand smoke I endured from Rabbi Kushner.
[00:04:41]  How about I think of it?
[00:04:43]  Anyway, Rabbi Kushner died at 107 from smoking.
[00:04:48]  No, smoking cigarettes is dangerous.
[00:04:51]  I don't believe the secondhand smoke stuff, but that's separate.
[00:04:53]  Okay.
[00:04:55]  Carol in Mesa, Arizona.
[00:04:57]  Hello, Carol.
[00:04:59]  Hi.
[00:04:59]  Hi, Dennis.
[00:05:00]  Hi.
[00:05:01]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:05:02]  Hi.
[00:05:05]  Angry growing up.
[00:05:06]  I felt like I had so many reasons to be angry.
[00:05:10]  And in my late 30s, I opened my journal to write something in it, and I realized what I had written before was in red ink.
[00:05:22]  And so I reread it, and it was all angry.
[00:05:25]  And I looked back in my journal, and everything that was written in red, I had something to complain about.
[00:05:32]  Wait, you would write in different color inks?
[00:05:36]  I didn't even know I would.
[00:05:38]  Yes, that's fascinating.
[00:05:39]  So you subconsciously chose red to express anger?
[00:05:44]  Yes.
[00:05:45]  And that was my aha moment, is when I looked at that and I thought, something's wrong.
[00:05:50]  How old were you?
[00:05:52]  I was probably 35 or 36. Wow.
[00:05:57]  And I'm 58 now.
[00:05:59]  So it took me a couple years to...
[00:06:02]  Overcome that nature.
[00:06:04]  Well, more than a couple.
[00:06:06]  It took you like 38. Well, I've actually been happy for about 35. Nothing really gets to me anymore, and a lot of that has to do with the Happiness Hour.
[00:06:22]  Really?
[00:06:24]  You made my day.
[00:06:26]  You see, well, that proves...