Dennis Prager Show - To Fully Live, You Must Suffer
Aired: 2025-04-30
Duration: 03:37


=== Normal Amount of Pain (03:06) ===

[00:00:00]  But I know from all the talks I have given how helpful it has been for people to realize that you don't have to be bubbling all the time.
[00:00:10]  That's not normal.
[00:00:11]  That might be manic.
[00:00:13]  The fact of the matter is, it is normal to have...
[00:00:17]  Great bouts of sadness, to have a lot of unhappiness, that is par for the course.
[00:00:23]  That is what life entails.
[00:00:25]  Now, if you're always unhappy or worse, depressed, it is something to certainly look into.
[00:00:31]  But what I really work at, this is the key difference here, what I work at in the book and in my talks is not to make people happy.
[00:00:39]  It is to reduce, and here come the operative words, to reduce gratuitous pain.
[00:00:46]  There is normal amount of pain in life.
[00:00:50]  Absolutely.
[00:00:51]  The only way to avoid it is to watch television constantly, which is why I think people do.
[00:00:57]  It's a numbing device, television, and I have a deep, deep antipathy to television.
[00:01:03]  It is normal to experience pain.
[00:01:05]  What I work against is gratuitous pain, where it's just unnecessary.
[00:01:10]  Why are you suffering?
[00:01:12]  Suffering is normal.
[00:01:14]  Dostoevsky put it, Very directly.
[00:01:17]  To live is to suffer.
[00:01:18]  And that is true.
[00:01:19]  And by the way, to fully live is to suffer even more.
[00:01:24]  If you really want to live, after all, I talk, for example, to singles, especially single men.
[00:01:31]  I have a talk, which you may want to give to single men that you may know.
[00:01:36]  It's called The Case for Marriage.
[00:01:38]  And coming from a single man, excuse me, a married man who was a single man, who totally identifies with where they're coming from, it has some persuasive power.
[00:01:47]  But one of the things that I make clear is that I don't promise you endless happiness through marriage and family, but the question that you really have to confront is do you want to grow?
[00:01:58]  Do you want to live life fully?
[00:02:01]  And the more fully you live life, the more you will suffer.
[00:02:05]  That's just a fact of life.
[00:02:06]  It's something, if you want marriage and you want children and you want other things in your life, the more you bring into your life, the more pain you will have.
[00:02:15]  That's a fact.
[00:02:16]  It doesn't come painlessly.
[00:02:18]  If people knew that, maybe there would be a lot less marriage to begin with.
[00:02:22]  Maybe people do go into marriage thinking, ah, this is the end of my ills, now I will be happy because he will make me happy.
[00:02:28]  One of the silliest things anyone in the world could ever possibly believe, but nevertheless, or even funnier, Well, we're not having a great marriage, so we'll have a kid.
[00:02:39]  Then we'll really be happy.
[00:02:41]  Which is perhaps the single stupidest thing a human being could utter.
[00:02:45]  I can't think of a more silly idea in the world than let's have kids, that'll make us happy.

=== Seeing the Audience React (00:45) ===

[00:02:51]  Kids, kids bring joy, there is no question.
[00:02:54]  But my argument for kids is not you'll be happier.
[00:02:57]  My argument for kids is you will live life more fully.
[00:03:02]  But it will bring immense amounts of pain.
[00:03:06]  Right?
[00:03:07]  Yes, it's one of the statements I make, which is least controversial.
[00:03:12]  I must say, people just going, huh, huh, huh.
[00:03:17]  That's the general view.
[00:03:20]  You see, you know, one of the joys of speaking is I get to see you, you don't.
[00:03:24]  You just get to see me.
[00:03:25]  And it is, one day, Brent, we have to do it vice versa.
[00:03:29]  We have to record from here.
[00:03:31]  Just have all the reactions going, "Oh God, is that true?
[00:03:35]  Oh God, is that true?"