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Dec. 5, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
09:54
You're as Happy as You Choose to be...
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My friends, every Friday since 1999, which when you think of it, was just 30 years after 1969. The reason for the silence is I sometimes like to read my engineer's face.
That's it, and I read him perfectly as he thought...
What?
That was what went through his mind.
The word...
What?
Since 1999 we've been doing this because they happy make the world better.
Boy, have you ever been more convinced?
I don't throw out lines.
I may be wrong, but I don't throw them out easily.
This is a lifetime of thought that has gone into these.
Lines, like the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
That's a lifetime of thought.
Everything the left touches, it damages, ruins.
It's a lifetime of thought.
And the happy make the world better?
That's, again, the product of a lifetime of thought.
Moral obligation to others not to be in bad moods.
These things have caught on with a lot of people.
Yes, you have a choice.
Most people have a choice.
And whether to be happy or not.
If Abraham Lincoln could choose...
You know, we always say Lincoln said...
What is it?
What do we say?
Lincoln said...
People should choose happiness.
I don't remember.
What do we quote Lincoln as saying?
Sorry?
You're as happy as you choose to be.
Thank you.
It's actually...
Did you ever see the actual...
That's almost right.
Lincoln on happiness.
Let me see what comes up here.
It's actually...
Here it is.
Perfect.
I got it.
Ready?
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
It's such a folksy way of putting it.
I love it.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
One of the great lessons of life, and one that I bring to you often, but I don't think often enough, everything is a choice.
That's the amazing thing.
You can choose whether to be scared.
You can choose whether to marry.
You can choose whether to have children.
Now, obviously, there are times in life where you can't surmount a physical barrier.
I live in the same world as you do.
I'm aware of that.
But you have to give generalizable rules or life has no wisdom to give you.
Generalizations are wisdom.
If they're wrong, they're not wisdom.
Choose.
You make a choice.
Choose to be happy.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
And he led a very difficult life.
He lost two sons, correct?
I mean, he had a particular...
Almost love affair, as it were, in the best sense of the word, with one of his sons, but I think he lost two.
His wife was manic depressive.
That was not what they said in those days, because that's not a term that they would have used in the 19th century.
And his country, you think things are awful now, and they are, but think about the Civil War.
600, 700,000 dead.
You realize how many were horribly wounded and maimed and blinded and brain damaged?
How would you like, I mean, it's a silly way of putting it, imagine having a limb amputated with no anesthetic.
What men suffered?
All because of slavery.
One of the true lies of our time is that slavery was the basis of American economic affluence.
Slavery was the basis of poverty.
The South was much poorer than the North, precisely because it relied on slavery.
Slavery was impoverishing, not enriching.
It enriched a couple of people, but not America.
Anyway, back to the happiness hour.
So, we have a topic today that will hit home for many of you.
Childhood and happiness.
And there are many ways I could phrase the topic.
But I will keep it within the element of choice, ultimately.
Does an unhappy childhood inevitably mean an unhappy adulthood?
That's...
And, by the way, I have raised this issue, but not in a while.
And I haven't heard others raise this issue.
It doesn't mean it hasn't.
Does a happy childhood ensure a happy adulthood?
There's a very interesting question.
I don't believe a happy childhood ensures a happy adulthood, and I don't believe an unhappy childhood ensures an unhappy adulthood.
Alright?
That's what I have seen in life.
But the bigger point, or at least as big a point, is back to...
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
If you had an unhappy childhood, you choose whether to allow it to make you miserable the rest of your life.
That's the happiness point on the happiness hour.
One of the horrible messages of the well-educated, who are almost always fools, not always, But almost, let's put it this way.
Most fools are well-educated.
Most well-educated are fools.
That's just the way it works.
And the message has been given that life does to you.
Like last hour, the poverty causes crime.
You didn't choose to be a criminal.
Oh no, it's your socioeconomic circumstances that have you rob and even murder.
And on occasion, rape.
No, no, no, no.
You didn't choose it.
At what level of income do you choose to be rotten?
That's what I'd like to ask people.
If you make $40,000 a year or more and you are a rotten human being, did you make that choice?
Or is it only at $100,000 a year?
And...
If happiness is a choice, what isn't?
Now, you can't choose to undo certain physical things.
If you are a woman who can't give birth, notice that I do restrict birth giving to women.
If you are a woman who cannot give birth for physiological reasons, then you can't choose to have a baby.
You can't choose to adopt.
So you can have a baby, but not biologically.
Last night, I conducted a youth orchestra.
These kids were so...
It was just the string sections.
A lot of the winds are afraid to show up because they've been told you'll pass COVID. As if a 16-year-old.
These were high school kids, by and large.
And one of the violinists was a black girl who was particularly charming and particularly ebullient and particularly vivacious, not to mention a good violinist, as they all were.
So she asked, oh, you know, she's a big fan of PragerU, and she wanted to get a selfie with me, and I did with, I think, almost all of the members of the orchestra.
And so I asked her, so where are you from?
And she told me, name of a city in Southern California.
And I said, and where are your parents from?
And she said, well, I'm adopted.
And she said it as matter-of-factly as I would say to you, you know, I'm in the mood for lunch.
And I said to her, oh, I just want you to know I haven't...
One of my sons is adopted, and I don't think blood matters at all.
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