| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Adopt the Attitude in Life
00:02:21
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| Yesterday I spoke to NYU students and I told them you've got to come out of the closet. | |
| It's tougher today, certainly, to come out of the closet as Republican or conservative on a college campus or at your workplace than it was to come out as a gay. | |
| And it was tough to come out as a gay. | |
| No question about that. | |
| Anyway, it's the happiness hour because it's such an important issue. | |
| Happy people make the world better, the unhappy make it worse. | |
| Today, my topic, I'm tempted to say is a big one, but they're all big ones, by and large, or I wouldn't choose them. | |
| But in the art of living, that's what this hour is about, really. | |
| It's the art of living well. | |
| What I am about to recommend to you, if you can act on it, it will change your life for the better, and everybody around you will love you even more. | |
| How do you like that? | |
| Is that a great promise? | |
| And it goes like this. | |
| I have made mention of this approach, but I don't know if I did an hour on the happiness hour on it. | |
| That, I don't know. | |
| And that is to adopt the attitude in life, so what? | |
| So what are magical words to say to yourself? | |
| Now, there are times when you can't say it. | |
| God forbid you get a diagnosis from your doctor of a terminal illness, like cancer, you're not going to say, ah, so what? | |
| Well, so what? | |
| So what is you may die prematurely. | |
| So, you can't always say, so what? | |
|
Advance and Strings
00:05:08
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| But you can most of the time. | |
| And you learn to do it by doing it. | |
| That is how most things are learned. | |
| You simply do it. | |
| Your mind says, it's a good approach, I will do it. | |
| I'll give you a fairly dramatic example. | |
| I was thinking with the living martyr, this thing needs examples. | |
| So, as you probably know, if you're listening to the Happiness Hour, I wrote a book on happiness called Happiness is a Serious Problem. | |
| It was published in 1998. It's still doing well because it's timeless. | |
| It has nothing to do with 1998. Titled Happiness is a Serious Problem, my original publisher was Random House. | |
| Random House offered me, not offered, they paid me an advance. | |
| I don't remember the sum, but it was significant for me at the time. | |
| That I can tell you. | |
| What is an advance? | |
| An advance is the publisher gives you X amount of money, and they are advancing you money on the profits of the book. | |
| So you don't get profits of the book as they come in, because you only get profits of the book when they surpass the advance on the profits. | |
| That's what advance means, advance on the profits. | |
| That they pay you at the outset. | |
| Every writer wants a big advance, even though theoretically they might prefer to be paid out as the book sells. | |
| But we all prefer, nearly all of us, in advance because, among other reasons, if the publisher gives you a big advance, they are sort of committed. | |
| To advertising and publicizing the book so that they can get their advance money back. | |
| All right. | |
| Anyway, I got an advance from Random House. | |
| However, it comes with a string. | |
| Not strings, a string. | |
| And what's the string? | |
| You must have the book in by X date. | |
| Telling me I have to have a book in by X date is like telling a blind man... | |
| Is that one beautiful painting or not? | |
| Okay? | |
| With all his goodwill, we cannot really appreciate a great painting. | |
| You can't read a painting in Braille. | |
| Okay. | |
| Or an audible of the Mona Lisa. | |
| Doesn't work. | |
| So... | |
| I took my time. | |
| I did my research. | |
| I did my writing. | |
| I had no book for them by the due date. | |
| Mr. Prager, thank you, but you'll have to send back the advance money. | |
| So, I've chosen this as my example, and I live by it, by and large, of the so-what approach. | |
| And I needed the money, and I had already spent it, as most authors do. | |
| But it didn't ruin my day. | |
| I sent them the money, and then I got another publisher, HarperCollins, which ended up publishing the book. | |
| The more often you could say, so what, about things that... | |
| Or just negative in your life, the healthier you will be. | |
| You can't always, obviously. | |
| And you must know the difference. | |
| But the more often you can do it... | |
| Ah, this I have told. | |
| This is one of my ten favorite stories of my life, which is filled with great stories. | |
| Top five, in fact. | |
| Fourth grade! | |
| I'm in a religious Jewish school, yeshiva. | |
| Rabbi announces, boys, it is time for the afternoon prayers. | |
| I walk over to the rabbi, and I was not being obnoxious, but just sincere. | |
| I said, Rabbi, I'm not in the mood for the afternoon prayers. | |
| Man had never heard mood and prayer in the same sentence. | |
| It was clear. | |
| Looked up, stroked his beard, then looked at me and said, Dennis Prager is not in the mood for the afternoon prayers? | |
| So what? | |
| He changed my life. | |
| I realized, so what if I'm in the mood for something? | |
| Or not in the mood? | |
| So what? | |
| I gotta do the right thing. | |