Dennis Prager Show - The Problems With a Victim Mentality...
Aired: 2021-02-27
Duration: 09:24


=== Moral Obligation to Act Happy (03:03) ===

[00:00:00]  I'm Dennis Prager, and I'm telling you, the happy make the world better.
[00:00:03]  You have a moral obligation to act happy even if you don't feel it.
[00:00:06]  You cannot impose your bad moods on others any more than you impose your bad breath on others.
[00:00:10]  You wash away your bad body odor, you should wash away your bad mood.
[00:00:15]  There are those who are incapable of doing so, just as there are people who even when they shower, they still have sad odors.
[00:00:22]  They can't help it, just there are people who have physiological, chemical, brain...
[00:00:28]  Defects that cause them an inability to act non-depressed.
[00:00:37]  My heart goes out to them.
[00:00:42]  It does.
[00:00:43]  I know a family plagued by a family of wonderful grown kids and one who has a brain issue, probably schizophrenic.
[00:00:57]  You know, I'd like to talk to Dr. Marmer, maybe even just a call on the air, our in-house psychiatrist.
[00:01:08]  One of the reasons I am told that...
[00:01:12]  What is the mental illness that I just described?
[00:01:19]  Schizophrenia, yeah.
[00:01:20]  One of the reasons that schizophrenics kept thinking psychotics.
[00:01:24]  I knew there wasn't a word.
[00:01:26]  Schizophrenics don't take their meds is the way it makes them feel.
[00:01:34]  Is there massive research being done?
[00:01:37]  You know, Bill Gates should consider giving money there rather than to math is racist programs in Oregon.
[00:01:45]  Yes.
[00:01:52]  All right.
[00:01:53]  Happiness hour subject.
[00:01:54]  Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen?
[00:01:59]  If you're driving, two hands on your steering wheel.
[00:02:06]  Actually, it doesn't need a big build-up.
[00:02:08]  It's a theme I haven't discussed in years, and I have more thoughts on it.
[00:02:13]  If you think you're a victim, you can't be happy.
[00:02:15]  There you go.
[00:02:17]  I let the cat out of the bag.
[00:02:21]  By the way, how do you explain that?
[00:02:24]  What does it mean to let the cat out of the bag?
[00:02:30]  Do either of you understand that?
[00:02:32]  I mean, I know what it means to reveal something, right?
[00:02:38]  But why is it letting a cat out of a bag?
[00:02:44]  No, no, okay.
[00:02:45]  I really need him.
[00:02:47]  God, you don't know what goes on in my earphones.

=== Why You Can't Be Happy (06:35) ===

[00:02:50]  It asks the question, okay, it begs the question, why was the cat in the bag in the first place?
[00:02:54]  No, it doesn't.
[00:02:55]  It takes a McConnell-esque mind to come up with that response.
[00:03:00]  All right.
[00:03:02]  All right.
[00:03:02]  Okay, fine.
[00:03:06]  You sure you don't need the men's room?
[00:03:07]  I mean, you can take a break.
[00:03:08]  You'll be back by the break.
[00:03:11]  So anyway, it's an interesting...
[00:03:14]  I like analyzing these things, like let a cat out of a bag.
[00:03:17]  What about a dog out of a bag?
[00:03:19]  Who puts cats...
[00:03:21]  All right, be that as it may, I told you what the bottom line is.
[00:03:27]  If you think you're a victim, you can't be happy.
[00:03:31]  Did you see the woman, what was it, at Smith College, that black woman who claimed that when they asked her why she was in a certain room, Tucker Carlson played the video.
[00:03:45]  This woman...
[00:03:48]  At Smith College, what is it, $65,000 a year?
[00:03:55]  And she sees herself as a victim.
[00:03:59]  She went to a classy boarding school.
[00:04:01]  She's at a $65,000 a year school.
[00:04:05]  She probably has a room that is better looking and equipped than, you know, at some...
[00:04:16]  Resort hotel room.
[00:04:22]  And somebody said, why are you in the room?
[00:04:25]  It's recorded unbelievably cheerfully and nicely because nobody should have been in that room at the college at the time.
[00:04:33]  And their lives have been ruined.
[00:04:36]  These people's lives are ruined.
[00:04:38]  The woman, I raise her...
[00:04:42]  And I will talk about the issue next week, but I'm raising her in the context of the Happiness Hour because she burst out into tears.
[00:04:55]  Because she was asked, why are you in this room?
[00:05:01]  On camera, in tears, victim of racism.
[00:05:06]  She said that.
[00:05:10]  I'm a victim of racism.
[00:05:15]  Shows you how little racism there is.
[00:05:18]  That's my proof.
[00:05:19]  My proof that how little racism there was in America is that virtually every case of racism is either a hoax or trivial.
[00:05:29]  This goes into the non-existent.
[00:05:33]  This is the third category.
[00:05:34]  She's not deliberately saying to be a hoax like Jussie Smollett.
[00:05:42]  This woman can't be happy.
[00:05:44]  There's no chance.
[00:05:48]  She has no chance at happiness.
[00:05:50]  And she will bring misery to her world and to her intimate world and to the larger society because of this profound unhappiness and anger.
[00:06:03]  Victimhood produces horrible...
[00:06:05]  It produces the worst thing of all, ingratitude.
[00:06:08]  Right?
[00:06:09]  You can't be a grateful victim.
[00:06:11]  Is there such a thing as a grateful victim?
[00:06:13]  No.
[00:06:17]  And people have it no matter what.
[00:06:21]  I mean, it's putting the racism issue aside.
[00:06:25]  People think they're victims.
[00:06:27]  I'll give you an example, because life consists of examples.
[00:06:34]  How many of you, at some point in your professional life, were told by somebody, That they would help you.
[00:06:44]  Right?
[00:06:45]  They were in a higher position in your field, and they, oh, I'm going to help you.
[00:06:52]  And they didn't.
[00:06:55]  Let me tell you how often that has happened to me.
[00:06:58]  The batting average of those who said they would help me rise is approximately 006. And I, in the very beginning, when the person didn't come through, I felt a drop victimized.
[00:07:19]  And then over the course of life, I expected nothing.
[00:07:25]  And by the way, the people who don't come through when they say, oh yeah, I'll help you, are not bad people.
[00:07:34]  They forget about you, or they really can't do it, or it takes too much time, and that's human.
[00:07:42]  Okay?
[00:07:48]  My book on happiness, it's funny, the longer the period of time between when I wrote it and when I'm speaking, the more I realize it's a really good book.
[00:07:58]  I know it's funny to say, but I do.
[00:08:01]  I realize that happiness is a serious problem is the name of the book.
[00:08:06]  And there's a chapter on not having expectations.
[00:08:09]  There's a perfect example.
[00:08:11]  When you have high expectations and they're not fulfilled, not only will you become ungrateful or bitter, but you will think you're a victim of life, of somebody failing you, or so on.
[00:08:30]  Don't have high expectations.
[00:08:33]  You live a life of permanent gratitude.
[00:08:42]  Victim.
[00:08:42]  Oh, God, it's the worst.
[00:08:45]  I have to say, because I talk about myself so you'll hear the human, not just the talk show host.
[00:08:55]  That is one thing I... I dreaded.
[00:09:00]  I dreaded thinking of myself as a victim or being regarded by others as a victim.
[00:09:06]  Even when I was.
[00:09:07]  And everybody is a victim at some point.
[00:09:09]  Everybody.
[00:09:12]  That's the topic on the Happiness Hour this Friday.
[00:09:17]  Do you know anybody in a perpetual state of victimhood?
[00:09:21]  Were you?
[00:09:23]  Are you?