Dennis Prager Show - Has this past year affected your happiness? - The Happiness Hour
Aired: 2021-05-07
Duration: 07:35


=== Is This Year Your Happiest? (07:35) ===

[00:00:00]  You with me on that, living martyr?
[00:00:02]  Do you know anybody who would say this has been their happiest year?
[00:00:07]  2020-2021.
[00:00:09]  2020-2021.
[00:00:12]  That's a good one.
[00:00:14]  Joe Biden.
[00:00:19]  That's right.
[00:00:20]  That's a very good response.
[00:00:22]  But I don't know him personally.
[00:00:24]  I don't know anybody personally who would say this was their happiest year.
[00:00:31]  Maybe we should do that.
[00:00:33]  I think it's worth exploring.
[00:00:37]  Has this past year affected your happiness?
[00:00:41]  1-8 Prager 776. It has affected mine.
[00:00:51]  How do you like that?
[00:00:52]  I'll bet you didn't expect me to say that.
[00:00:56]  You know, this is not some automaton.
[00:01:00]  Some happiness robot speaking to you every week.
[00:01:04]  Remember, the name of my book on happiness is, Happiness is a Serious Problem.
[00:01:10]  Now, if I thought happiness were effortless, I wouldn't have given the book that title, correct?
[00:01:21]  I work on being happy.
[00:01:23]  I do have a natural disposition toward it.
[00:01:27]  Although I was not a happy little kid.
[00:01:30]  But I work on it, and that is the reason I can help you, whether through the book or through the show, or both, hopefully, with regard to your happiness.
[00:01:45]  Because I've worked on mine, and I have figured out some things to do.
[00:01:50]  This year was a challenge.
[00:01:52]  And I'll tell you why primarily.
[00:01:54]  It wasn't a challenge primarily because of my life.
[00:01:59]  My life continued actually more normal than almost any other American's life.
[00:02:06]  I continued to be with friends from the very beginning.
[00:02:11]  I did not miss, I don't believe I missed a Friday night Shabbat dinner with a lot of friends, generally about 16. Every Friday night from last March.
[00:02:25]  I have not worn a mask outdoors.
[00:02:28]  Ever.
[00:02:30]  I have been with, when not possible, I've been on Zoom with friends.
[00:02:40]  My synagogue, which I helped found, plays a great role in my life.
[00:02:45]  I'm so committed to my weekly service where I teach.
[00:02:50]  That I will be in Cleveland this weekend.
[00:02:54]  I'm giving a speech to the Republican Party of Ohio.
[00:03:01]  And I will actually be giving my talk on the Torah from my hotel room in Cleveland.
[00:03:11]  That is how committed I am.
[00:03:15]  And it is no, by the way, it is...
[00:03:18]  It is mostly selfish.
[00:03:21]  I tell the people at my synagogue, minion as we call it, I tell them, I come here every week out of selfish reasons.
[00:03:34]  This helps keep me sane.
[00:03:37]  I've talked to you anyway about religion and happiness on a number of occasions.
[00:03:40]  It's not my topic today.
[00:03:41]  But how do I know about it?
[00:03:44]  Because I know the role it plays in my own.
[00:03:48]  There are secular people who are happy.
[00:03:50]  There's no question about that.
[00:03:52]  There are unhappy religious people.
[00:03:55]  But by and large, there's no comparison.
[00:03:57]  If for no other reason, you have a built-in community if you're religious.
[00:04:01]  Where's your built-in community if you're secular?
[00:04:06]  I'll wait for a response.
[00:04:09]  You know what the secular response to the religious community is?
[00:04:15]  Government!
[00:04:17]  What was the great line?
[00:04:19]  Oh yes, you got that line, Sean?
[00:04:21]  I called it a Hall of Famer.
[00:04:23]  The line from President Biden's State of the Union address given to masked, vaccinated people in the House of Representatives.
[00:04:38]  Nothing quite as wild as the Vice President and her husband, the second husband.
[00:04:45]  No, no, the second gentleman.
[00:04:47]  I always get that wrong.
[00:04:49]  Second gentleman.
[00:04:51]  Now, if Kamala Harris were married to a woman, I would be the second lady.
[00:04:58]  Well, we've always had a second lady, so there would be no switcheroo, now that I think of it.
[00:05:05]  Kissing each other through masks.
[00:05:08]  And we're supposed to take this woman seriously.
[00:05:13]  So, my question for you is, this past year, how has it affected your happiness?
[00:05:21]  And it's very important to work on it.
[00:05:23]  I worked on it quite a bit.
[00:05:26]  I mean, I was just discussing this with a living martyr.
[00:05:31]  This was the first year I did not travel abroad since I was 20 years old.
[00:05:36]  I did not have a single speech.
[00:05:38]  Well, I had a couple of speeches on Zoom.
[00:05:40]  And it was a very different thing...
[00:05:50]  But the worst for me, I'll tell you, you know what the greatest challenge to my happiness was?
[00:05:56]  Not those facts.
[00:05:58]  Very happy at home.
[00:05:59]  I am very, thank God, happy at home.
[00:06:02]  Not everybody can say that, I'm well aware.
[00:06:04]  And I couldn't always say that.
[00:06:07]  It's just for the record.
[00:06:10]  The greatest challenge to my happiness this year...
[00:06:14]  Was watching my country wrecked by the left.
[00:06:22]  Morally, intellectually, and in fact physically.
[00:06:28]  Watching Minneapolis and Portland and New York and Chicago, among others.
[00:06:39]  I love this country.
[00:06:40]  I do believe it's the last best hope.
[00:06:43]  On Earth, as Abraham Lincoln characterized it, and to see it destroyed from within, an unprecedented thing.
[00:06:54]  It's like our ambassador to the United Nations.
[00:06:59]  The only ambassador to the United Nations from any country in the world to crap on her own country.
[00:07:07]  This is unprecedented.
[00:07:10]  Of an essentially decent place committing suicide.
[00:07:14]  And the people voting for the homicide that is creating the suicide.
[00:07:23]  An amazing thing.
[00:07:26]  That has in fact, that has challenged my happiness this year.
[00:07:33]  There's no place to move, my friends.