Dennis Prager Show - Dennis' Timeless Advice for Happiness
Aired: 2021-02-20
Duration: 07:15


=== Adopt the Attitude in Life (02:21) ===

[00:00:00]  Yesterday I spoke to NYU students and I told them you've got to come out of the closet.
[00:00:08]  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.
[00:00:24]  And it was tough to come out as a gay.
[00:00:27]  No question about that.
[00:00:29]  Anyway, it's the happiness hour because it's such an important issue.
[00:00:34]  Happy people make the world better, the unhappy make it worse.
[00:00:40]  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.
[00:00:48]  But in the art of living, that's what this hour is about, really.
[00:00:53]  It's the art of living well.
[00:00:58]  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.
[00:01:11]  How do you like that?
[00:01:12]  Is that a great promise?
[00:01:17]  And it goes like this.
[00:01:19]  I have made mention of this approach, but I don't know if I did an hour on the happiness hour on it.
[00:01:25]  That, I don't know.
[00:01:27]  And that is to adopt the attitude in life, so what?
[00:01:36]  So what are magical words to say to yourself?
[00:01:42]  Now, there are times when you can't say it.
[00:01:46]  God forbid you get a diagnosis from your doctor of a terminal illness, like cancer, you're not going to say, ah, so what?
[00:01:57]  Well, so what?
[00:01:58]  So what is you may die prematurely.
[00:02:03]  So, you can't always say, so what?

=== Advance and Strings (05:08) ===

[00:02:06]  But you can most of the time.
[00:02:11]  And you learn to do it by doing it.
[00:02:15]  That is how most things are learned.
[00:02:17]  You simply do it.
[00:02:19]  Your mind says, it's a good approach, I will do it.
[00:02:23]  I'll give you a fairly dramatic example.
[00:02:26]  I was thinking with the living martyr, this thing needs examples.
[00:02:34]  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.
[00:02:42]  It was published in 1998. It's still doing well because it's timeless.
[00:02:48]  It has nothing to do with 1998. Titled Happiness is a Serious Problem, my original publisher was Random House.
[00:03:00]  Random House offered me, not offered, they paid me an advance.
[00:03:06]  I don't remember the sum, but it was significant for me at the time.
[00:03:14]  That I can tell you.
[00:03:18]  What is an advance?
[00:03:20]  An advance is the publisher gives you X amount of money, and they are advancing you money on the profits of the book.
[00:03:31]  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.
[00:03:41]  That's what advance means, advance on the profits.
[00:03:45]  That they pay you at the outset.
[00:03:47]  Every writer wants a big advance, even though theoretically they might prefer to be paid out as the book sells.
[00:03:56]  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.
[00:04:10]  To advertising and publicizing the book so that they can get their advance money back.
[00:04:16]  All right.
[00:04:16]  Anyway, I got an advance from Random House.
[00:04:19]  However, it comes with a string.
[00:04:22]  Not strings, a string.
[00:04:24]  And what's the string?
[00:04:26]  You must have the book in by X date.
[00:04:31]  Telling me I have to have a book in by X date is like telling a blind man...
[00:04:38]  Is that one beautiful painting or not?
[00:04:42]  Okay?
[00:04:44]  With all his goodwill, we cannot really appreciate a great painting.
[00:04:51]  You can't read a painting in Braille.
[00:04:54]  Okay.
[00:04:56]  Or an audible of the Mona Lisa.
[00:05:00]  Doesn't work.
[00:05:04]  So...
[00:05:06]  I took my time.
[00:05:07]  I did my research.
[00:05:09]  I did my writing.
[00:05:11]  I had no book for them by the due date.
[00:05:15]  Mr. Prager, thank you, but you'll have to send back the advance money.
[00:05:22]  So, I've chosen this as my example, and I live by it, by and large, of the so-what approach.
[00:05:35]  And I needed the money, and I had already spent it, as most authors do.
[00:05:43]  But it didn't ruin my day.
[00:05:47]  I sent them the money, and then I got another publisher, HarperCollins, which ended up publishing the book.
[00:05:58]  The more often you could say, so what, about things that...
[00:06:04]  Or just negative in your life, the healthier you will be.
[00:06:08]  You can't always, obviously.
[00:06:10]  And you must know the difference.
[00:06:13]  But the more often you can do it...
[00:06:15]  Ah, this I have told.
[00:06:19]  This is one of my ten favorite stories of my life, which is filled with great stories.
[00:06:25]  Top five, in fact.
[00:06:27]  Fourth grade!
[00:06:30]  I'm in a religious Jewish school, yeshiva.
[00:06:33]  Rabbi announces, boys, it is time for the afternoon prayers.
[00:06:36]  I walk over to the rabbi, and I was not being obnoxious, but just sincere.
[00:06:44]  I said, Rabbi, I'm not in the mood for the afternoon prayers.
[00:06:49]  Man had never heard mood and prayer in the same sentence.
[00:06:52]  It was clear.
[00:06:53]  Looked up, stroked his beard, then looked at me and said, Dennis Prager is not in the mood for the afternoon prayers?
[00:07:03]  So what?
[00:07:05]  He changed my life.
[00:07:07]  I realized, so what if I'm in the mood for something?
[00:07:11]  Or not in the mood?
[00:07:13]  So what?
[00:07:14]  I gotta do the right thing.