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Oct. 31, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
51:54
Timeless Wisdom - A Talk to High School Students: Master Your Feelings
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Here are thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
Tell you something that nobody tells you, or very few people do.
No one cares how you feel except you.
Nobody.
I mean, that's just the way it is in life.
And that's perfectly fine.
You don't care how I feel.
You care how well I deliver a lecture.
That is all that should matter to you.
And that is exactly right.
You sit next to somebody on an airplane.
I always use airplane analogies because I live on airplanes.
If the person next to me is nice, accommodating, I don't expect a long conversation, just nice.
Hi, how are you?
You know, where are you flying?
Where you're flying, they know.
But, you know, where do you come from?
And so on.
That's just fine.
I like that.
You know, you want to get up.
You're at the window seat.
They're at the aisle seat.
They don't make a big deal if you want to go to the lavatory.
That's all I want.
That's really what I want.
You want good behavior from your fellow human being.
What they feel is not of importance to you, nor should it be.
I'm not saying that if somebody opens up about their feelings, you shouldn't be sympathetic.
Of course you should.
But it is how you act in life that matters.
And this is true in every single area of life.
Now, obviously, for your parents, how you feel is important, for eventually I hope you'll get married, and how you feel will be important to your spouse, but that's about it.
I mean, think about it.
If anybody determined their behavior by their feelings, what if a soldier said, you know, I'm not in the mood to fight today?
I mean, can you imagine that?
Imagine an airplane pilot who said, you know, I'm really in the mood for a couple of scotches and water.
I don't think you'd be very happy.
You would say to the pilot, sir, as much as you are in the mood for a scotch and soda, we would appreciate if you would drink it after we landed.
Thank you so much.
You don't care about the pilot's feelings.
You care about the pilot's behavior.
I mean, it's just, it's endless in this regard.
I don't care.
I just had surgery.
I don't care if my surgeon had self-esteem.
I care that he did a good job.
You know that they did a vote among students, high school students of seven industrialized or 14 industrialized democracies, obviously including the U.S., high school seniors, on a math ability.
Unfortunately, the American students came in last, but they came in first about how highly they regarded their math ability.
Americans were first in self-esteem about math and last in math.
All right, now I'm glad you're laughing because your laughter is the register of the absurdity of it and realizing that feelings don't matter.
How I feel about my math ability is of no importance.
It's my math ability that matters, not my feelings about my math ability.
There is no area, and if you differ, and many of you might, because what I'm saying does go against what a lot of you may feel.
That's fine.
And I differ with people for a living.
So have no worry about differing with me if I'm not convincing of you.
Let me give you example after example.
I gave you the example of work.
You can't just say, you know, I'm just not in the mood to go to work today.
Well, obviously you can do that twice, three times a year, but you can't do that on a regular basis.
I have been a talk show host in LA for 18 years, in the last 10 years, so that's 28 years, for the last 10 years nationally.
And folks, there are days when I've had problems at home or I don't feel well.
But I can't get on the radio and say, you know, folks, to tell you the truth, I feel crappy today.
I'm just going to tell you what a lousy mood I'm in.
I would lose my listeners, and rightly so.
They don't care about how I'm feeling that day.
They care about what I have to say that day.
Do I have something worthwhile to keep their interest?
Can I hold their interest?
That's what matters.
It's what matters to anybody who is the recipient of work.
If somebody is, a waiter or waitress is rude to you because they had a tough day at home, I'm sorry.
Then they can't hold that job.
The job of a waiter or waitress is to be nice to his or her customers.
That's exactly the point.
Everybody has had a tough day at home.
For everybody, at some point, life is difficult.
That is a rule of life.
Dostoevsky said, to live means to suffer.
Well, happily, a lot of you will differ with that, and at your age, you should.
I hope that you don't believe that at your age.
But there is a lot of suffering in life, and that's part of life.
But I can't take that out on you in my work.
Anybody's work.
Everybody you interrelate with has to relate to you in a decent manner, not dependent upon their feelings.
Number two, and the biggest area, or perhaps the biggest, one that I talk about literally around the world and have for 20 years now and wrote my last book on it titled Happiness is a Serious Problem because it is, is that happiness, the way you act in terms of happiness, even that should not be dependent upon whether you feel happy or not.
I put it this way, you have a moral obligation to be happy, or at least to act happy.
Just as you have a moral obligation to be honest, to have integrity, to have decency, to act kindly to people, you have a moral obligation to act, to be hopefully, but no matter what, act happy.
And the examples are, I think, persuasive because it sounds to you odd.
If I don't feel happy, why should I act it?
Aren't I being inauthentic?
Well, what does that mean to be inauthentic?
You're being inauthentic, forgive me, if you don't flatulate in public.
That's inauthentic if you want to be authentic.
You know what flatulate is?
Okay, just checking.
All right, no, no, no, no, it's quite a right.
It's a fancy term, and nobody uses it.
They say fart.
So I fully understand why not.
But you're inauthentic if you don't do that.
You're inauthentic if you shower every day.
You don't have to shower every day for health.
We shower every day for others so that we don't smell bad.
We brush our teeth, we gargle with mouthwash, whatever you do to have good breath.
We do that for others.
If you were alone on a desert island, you wouldn't brush your teeth nearly as often, believe me.
It's for others that we do a tremendous amount of things, and I compare bad moods to bad breath.
I want you to compare it that way.
You're inflicting upon others something they don't deserve to have inflicted on them, whether it's bad breath or bad mood.
Think of bad mood as BO, and then you will change your moods.
It's a very powerful way of thinking upon it.
Now, is it inauthentic to shower and brush your teeth and gargle?
Yes, it is.
It's quite inauthentic.
So whatever that word means, it's odd to me.
You're not being inauthentic.
You're being caring of others by doing that.
It's inauthentic to say thank you every single time someone does something for you.
I remember when raising my kids, there's no question the phrase I said the most often was say thank you.
Say thank you.
Say thank you.
I felt like I was a recording.
Say thank you.
By about the age of 20, it registers.
So for about 20 years, I was saying, say thank you.
Say please.
Say thank you.
You remember it from your own parents.
It's not authentic to say thank you.
Authentic is to take what is ever given to you and move on.
Being nice may not be authentic, whatever that even that term means.
So forget this argument, it's inauthentic.
Well, I feel bad.
Why shouldn't I act bad?
Doesn't work like that at all.
Now, if you have a close friend, of course you should tell your friend why you're feeling sad.
Of course, I'm not saying you suppress it.
If you feel bad for a reason, tell someone who loves you and cares about you.
Absolutely.
I'm all for it.
Just don't act in a bad mood.
Every one of you, any one of you raised by a chronically unhappy parent, knows what I'm saying, how true what I'm saying is.
It is no blessing to be raised by a chronically unhappy parent or one who will be in a bad mood regularly.
And it is the greatest trouble in a marriage.
Most marriages, this is fascinating.
It's part of my research I came up with this.
Most marriages consist of a moody married to a non-moody.
It's a fascinating thing.
You would think that the non-moody would want to marry a fellow non-moody, but they don't.
Most of the time, they marry a moody, which has always led me to at least one conclusion.
The moody may be unhappy, but they're not stupid.
They never marry one of their own.
Never.
I have never encountered a moody married to a moody.
I'm not saying they don't exist.
I'm saying I've never encountered them.
A moody almost always marry a non-moody.
And so it's a fascinating thing, but the non-moody ultimately suffer terribly, and the marriage suffers terribly.
To be married to a moody person or to have a moody co-worker with you every day, or for that matter, I'll tell you, to have a moody person sitting next to you on the plane.
I mean, anytime it is, I've taken this so seriously of trying to have a cheerful disposition at all times.
I'm the cheerful guy in the elevator.
I always make conversation in an elevator.
Now, nine out of ten times, it's very appreciated.
I'll make a joke or something.
One out of ten times, the person doesn't know what to make of it.
Why would a stranger talk to me in an elevator?
But 90% of the time, people start laughing, they start conversing, they're happy that there's cheer in the elevator.
What do most people do in the elevator?
Stare at the buttons, excuse me, stare at the numbers lighting up.
Wow, five follows four.
That is unbelievable.
What an interesting elevator.
I mean, that's basically what it amounts to, right?
Isn't everybody staring at the diodes?
It's a joke.
At every time in life, the joy you bring to others or the misery you bring to others is why you have a moral obligation toward others to act as happy as possible.
That is how you affect others.
You know, the moody think that the non-moody have it easier.
This is the most common way in which moody people defend their moodiness.
Well, if you went through what I went through, you'd also walk around moody.
Incorrect.
The non-moody have just as much suffering as the moody.
Not one bit less.
But either by temperament or choice, they have fought their circumstances or their feelings, and they have decided to be a pleasant presence in everybody's life.
I have an hour on my show.
I have 15 hours of radio each week, three hours live each day, so that's 15.
One each week, no matter what happens in the world, even after 9-11.
I had my, what I call the happiness hour, Friday, second hour of my show.
It is, I suspect, the most popular hour of my program, where people's lives literally have been changed.
I have thousands upon thousands of emails of how that show has changed their lives, and it's especially on this issue.
And I'll never forget the woman who called me who lost two adult children, one in a car crash and one to cancer, in their 20s.
And you should have heard the cheerful disposition she conveyed.
And she said to me, Dennis, I had a choice.
I could either let myself decline and become a moody, unhappy, self-centered human, or I could go on and bring some cheer into people's lives when I met them, despite the horrible things that have happened to me in life.
Everything, and I want you to understand this: what I am telling you today is the happiest message I could bring to you.
You can choose to be the master of your life.
Controlling feelings means I, not my feelings, control me.
Then you are the master of your life.
You have a choice.
Do your hormones run you?
Do your feelings run you?
Do your moods run you?
Or does your mind run you?
That is your choice every day, every minute.
This needs to be told to you now.
Because if you don't learn it at 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, you'll learn it at 30 the hard way or 40 the hard way or never learn it.
And you will have a miserable life and you will have very few people in your life because one thing you probably know even now is that those with the happiest dispositions bring more people into their lives than the chronically unhappy and the chronically moody.
Everybody, including the moody, want to be around happy people.
Everybody.
You want to attract people, same-sex, opposite sex, to you?
The single best way is to have a cheerful personality.
You are the winner of the winners.
I don't mean walking around giggling all day or with a false smile.
You all know what a cheerful disposition is, where people want to be around you and leave a little happier than they walked in, versus having spent the last two hours with you and are frankly a little miserable as a result of having spent those two hours with you.
And you're smart enough to know what the difference is.
So that's your choice.
That's why this is so critical.
There are 30, 50 things I could have talked to you about.
I have over 200 lectures on CD on 200 different subjects.
But this is the one that I think is absolutely the one.
If you'll ever thank me 20 years from now, it will be for this if you take it to heart.
So two examples I gave you of not allowing feelings to determine how you behave were work and happiness.
I will give you another one.
Simple kindness.
That's all.
Most people don't wake up in the morning and think, God, how can I just do good all day?
It isn't like that.
When people give charity, very few people are dying to give away their money for nothing.
But they give charity out of a sense of obligation.
Most kindness doesn't come from the heart, believe it or not.
Most kindness comes from the mind.
The heart is a lousy guide to life.
Lousy.
The mind is the better guide to life.
And so when people do things for others, it is very often out of a sense of obligation.
This is the right thing to do, and this is the way I will behave towards somebody.
Not because, wow, I'm dying to.
Most of the things we're dying to do are selfish.
It makes perfect sense.
It's true for me that most of the things that my heart wants me to do are terrific for Dennis.
Not terribly, necessarily terrific for anybody else.
So my mind has to say, this is what you do.
When your parent or parents woke up at the middle of the night at 3 a.m. because you were crying or you were peeing or regurgitating in your crib, it wasn't because their heart moved them to get out of bed at 3 a.m. again.
It was because their mind said, I'm obligated as a parent to do this.
And they were right.
We're obligated as a parent to do it.
Most goodness comes from the mind, not from the heart.
If we wait for the heart to prompt people to do good, it'll happen, but pretty rarely.
It is done because the mind tells the mind, this or the body, this is what you have to do.
It's not just in kindness, even for yourself.
Body wants cheesecake, mind says, you know, if you eat enough of that stuff, you'll get pretty fat.
The mind versus feelings are all through life.
Feelings want cheesecake, mind says celery.
It's a terrible choice, actually.
Terrible.
It's one of the questions.
I have a list of questions I will intend to ask God when we meet, which I hope is many years from now.
And one of them is, why did you invent the mosquito?
I find that to be a mistake, a divine mistake.
And the other is, why couldn't you make celery fattening and cheesecake healthy?
But in the meantime, the reality is what I would not like it to be.
Hence, I don't eat as much cheesecake as I would like.
Number four, let me give you an example under, which really goes, well, it's just another example, goes under this heading of not working on feelings.
Here's a beauty for you.
And I'll give you one from the Ten Commandments.
Honor your father and mother.
It's a fascinating commandment.
Do you know that nowhere in the Bible, and I don't care if you're an atheist or you're not a Jew or a Christian, it doesn't matter.
It's just I'm giving you an example of the most influential book in world history, and that is the Bible.
And the Bible has love your neighbor, says love your neighbor as yourself.
It says love the stranger.
It says love God.
It doesn't tell you to love your parents.
It tells you to honor them.
It's genius, sheer genius.
And you know why?
Not everybody loves their parents, and that's quite all right.
There is no imperative to love your parents.
There is an imperative to honor them.
And honor is an act.
Love is an act and a feeling.
There is no feeling demanded about how you feel toward your parent.
You may hate them and love them.
Most people go through some period of anger toward a parent.
Most people.
Some don't.
If you haven't, you're lucky.
That's fine.
Most people do.
At least one parent, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes five.
You get the joke?
You know, it's just, it's, I'm kidding around.
I mean, but a lot of people, no, no, I'm not, I'm kidding around about a reality because of the number of divorce and stepfamilies, which is including my own.
So I'm laughing about my own as well.
I mean, there may be a number of parent figures in your lives.
The point is, though, that the injunction in the Ten Commandments is to honor your father and mother, not to love them.
Whether you love them or not, you have to honor them.
Now, if your parent kept you in a refrigerator to freeze to death and then scalded you with boiling water, okay, don't ask me that question during the QA period.
Okay, there is a level of evil that a parent can inflict on a child or do in life that I understand they have, in effect, lost the right toward being honored.
But in the vast majority of cases, including very flawed parents, you still owe them the honor.
And I'll give you an example of owing the honor.
There have been presidents that I didn't like at all and didn't respect at all.
And I won't say the name, but in my work where I meet very prominent people, one of these presidents was in my radio studio.
He was being interviewed by the talk show host before me.
And I couldn't stand this ex-president, couldn't stand him.
And when he came in, I stood up.
Because I believe you honor the President of the United States or even the ex-President of the United States because you're honoring their title, not necessarily the person.
You honor the title father.
You honor the title mother.
Whether they've been great or not great, that is what is important.
And that's what it says.
That's a perfect example of not acting on your feelings.
I'll give you a perfect example, a really perfect example of how I look at this.
There is a, I believe an epidemic no one talks about.
An epidemic in our society of adult children, I mean children in their 20s, 30s, 40s, who do not speak to a parent.
They have chosen to act as if they and the parent are dead.
They do not ever contact the parent.
In the vast majority of cases, I think that that is immoral.
The parent may be awful, may be whatever the parent may be, so you figure out how to work that out.
If necessary, move to Alaska.
I'm not kidding.
Move away.
It doesn't say in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt live in thine parents' city.
Okay, that's not, it just says honor your father and mother.
And the most dishonoring thing you can do is act like they don't live.
So here is a very interesting test that I would like to see done by some sociologists.
I would like to get a thousand adults, people your age and older, who do not speak to a parent.
I don't mean for a week.
I think that's wrong, but I'm not talking about a week.
I'm talking about a year or more, let's say, who do not speak to a parent, who've chosen not to.
And I would like to see of those thousand, how many believe in the Ten Commandments, that they are binding in their lives, and how many do not.
And I just suspect, I have no proof, that those who do believe that there is a divine imperative in the Ten Commandments are more likely to speak to a parent they are angry at than secular kids are to speak to a parent that they're angry at.
I cannot prove this, but it is my suspicion.
And you have to do what you have to do.
Men have their obligations too, but in this arena, it is a much happier woman and happier man and therefore happier marriage who is not guided solely by her feelings, even in the most intimate arena of life, which is sex.
This gives you an idea of how much we have to battle our feelings.
As just he has to battle his feelings.
Because a man battles, I'm sorry to tell you, this is part of why I want you to see that video.
It's free.
Go to PragerUniversity.com.
And every male, gay or straight, and gay men are the proof that it's not socially induced.
It's natural to men.
They are variety-oriented.
The most happily married man in the world is variety-oriented.
That's just a fact.
And if he stays faithful, and he should, he's a good man.
And if he has confined and delimited his sexual, powerful sexual urge for variety just to confine it to you, why do men fear commitment?
This is the biggest reason.
I'll never be able to touch another woman till I die.
Men want to die when they hear that.
I mean, that's why they have, you know, they go to, and I'm not for it, but they have bachelor parties at strip joints the night before their wedding.
It's not a brilliant idea, but the whole thinking behind it is, well, I got to get my last chance in here for variety.
That's what it says.
That's what the statement is.
Very few women go to a male strip club the night before their wedding.
Oh man, I won't be able to have another man like this.
I better, you know, I better really jazz it up the night before.
All right, that's the reality, my friends.
And here is the irony, and with this I conclude.
If you master your feelings, you will feel better.
That's the ultimate irony.
I promise you better feelings, more happiness, more joy, more friends, more love, as soon as you realize how every day, just about every minute, you're involved in mastering your feelings.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you.
Okay, that's great.
Thank you.
That's why I come.
I get paid zero for the speeches here at Pepperdine, but I love this place.
I love your program.
So that's my reward.
Okay, so time for your comments.
Please don't hesitate to disagree.
I just want you to be brief.
That's all so others can talk.
Identify yourselves for me and stand when you ask so I can hear you.
Thank you.
Hi, Susie.
Where are you from?
I'm from Mark.
Okay.
I was wondering if you think success is.
Oh, that's an interesting question.
What do I think success is?
Well, it's a very, very fine question, not often asked that.
Success is to be able to look back at your life whenever your death comes, to be able to look back on your life and to say that you mattered.
That to me is success.
And unfortunately, too many people think mattering has to be with regard to vast numbers of people.
So they think that success is doing some large thing in life.
Not true.
Success, here is a motto of mine.
The significant are rarely famous, and the famous are rarely significant.
Lady Gaga is known to all of you.
But she is insignificant.
That's all.
It's not a wrap on her or anything like that.
It's just a fact.
Lady Gaga cannot say, thanks to me, X and Y and Z are better and happier and finer people.
Most people who touch one life are very significant.
And that's the way you have to look at life.
Did I touch, whether it's your kids, whether it's your spouse, whether it's strangers in your work, that's success.
I mattered.
That's it.
That's what people really, in the final analysis, you think you want to be famous.
Very many of you want to be famous.
Many of you want to be rich.
That's fine.
If you want to be either, it's your business.
But if you want, what you really want to do is matter.
And the vast majority of mattering is a handful of individual lives.
Okay?
Next, please.
Anybody?
Yes, please.
Would you stand?
Thank you.
My name's Emma.
I'm from Civic Policy.
Do you think that, I mean, from my point of view, I feel like I'm empathetic towards situations or people.
Do you think that's something that I've created with my mind?
Or, I mean, just because I feel like, you know, somebody gets hurt and empathetic towards them.
And what do you think about, and are you married?
Yes.
I am married.
Is my wife here?
Where is she?
There is my wife.
See, that's proof.
You know, I mean, you know, I could say I'm married, but really not be.
And now, to your first question, I must say, and I never patronize audiences, so far you're two for two.
I don't want to put pressure on the third person, you know, but that's a great question.
The truth is, some people are born more empathic than others.
That's the truth.
Some people have a bigger battle with bad instincts than others.
I admit it.
I was never drawn to robbing a bank.
I admit it.
There was no part of me.
I didn't cheat on high school tests.
I don't take any credit for it.
My own disposition wouldn't allow it.
I actually, if I would ask a kid for an answer to a question, I felt demeaned.
That's what I felt.
I felt I was belittled, and I had a very strong sense of dignities.
This dignity was inborn in me.
I recognize that.
I take credit for courage, but I take no credit for my empathic abilities.
And I cried a lot when I saw horror films, not silly horror films, you know, but real ones about the Holocaust, about Soviet communism.
And I saw these people slaughtered.
And to this day, I just read a book on Ma and I and I almost cried when I read it, the suffering that he inflicted on his people.
That's built in.
What you do with it is what your mind will choose.
Okay, you could be empathic and not do anything about it.
Just, oh, I feel so terrible.
But if you, that's, so that's the issue.
And for those who don't feel a profound sense of empathy for others' suffering, you could still be the finest person in the world.
Just start acting that way, and it'll change your character.
Okay?
I'll go back up there.
There's nobody up there.
Sir, please.
Yes, thank you.
Hi, I'm Calvin from Glenda on 2014.
Oh.
I just want to know, earlier, Torres, you spoke about how your son received a trophy for a winning.
No, no, just a trophy for playing.
I understand it makes complete sense.
It's very logical.
But do you think it could be easy to you or maybe a middle of some kind of meeting could be found?
Because it's a little single, little cold, and you kind of think to force that onto you.
I mean, to me, I'm not saying I consider it is absurd, and I'll agree with you on the other, but do you think it could be maybe some type of way to use an intuitive so it could be taught easier?
So what could be taught easier?
Self-esteem?
Yeah, or maybe somewhat like.
Self-esteem can't be taught.
Self-esteem can only be earned.
It can only be earned easier.
You can't earn self-esteem easily.
If you earn self-esteem easily, there's something fraudulent about your self-esteem.
Boy, did I eat that yogurt well?
I am the greatest.
You know, that doesn't work.
Huh?
You could?
Guys do that all the time.
Guys always compliment themselves.
Women never do.
Do you ever notice that, by the way?
Oh, did you see that shot?
Hey, did you see that shot?
Eh?
Eh, eh?
Is that Kobe Bryant or what?
You never see a woman do that ever, ever.
Am I great or what?
Women would cringe at the thought of saying that.
It's a very funny male-female difference.
We're constantly telling ourselves how great we are.
That's part of it.
That's why the best thing a woman could do is believe her husband's a great guy.
And let him know.
Yes?
I'm an ambassador for several years.
Right.
Where can we hear your radio show?
Say it again?
Where can we hear your radio show?
Oh, in San Bernardino, K-T-I-E.
But it's all over the country.
You just got to tell me your city, and I'll tell you.
I mean, it's not in every single city.
And if not, you could hear it on the internet at just go to dennisprager.com and you'll usually be able to hear it.
They'll tell you where to hear it.
And if you are really into it for $6 a month, which is not heavy duty, that's less than pizza.
You can get the show anytime you want, download it without commercials.
And I think you'd have a great time with it.
Let me just try different sections.
Yes, please, yes.
My name is Olivia.
And my question is, you're talking about moody people sort of being the toxic, you know?
That's right.
That's what I said.
Two hours with a moody person, and you'll end up being miserable afterwards.
So as a cheerful cheerful person, how do you sort of like come up on top of that and remain cheerful from that type of thing?
The truth is, it's very hard to remain.
Did you all hear her question?
If you're a cheerful type and you just spent two hours with a moody person, how do you get out of it?
Well, after a really good shower, you might want to reconsider why am I spending this amount of time with a chronically moody person.
This person, unfortunately, is toxic.
The greatest favor you could do to that person is tell them.
Now, I admit that it may end a friendship, but why you would want to be friends with somebody who's chronically moody is a question you'll have to answer.
You will do them the greatest favor by telling them you're chasing away a dear friend because of the way you act.
You're chasing me away.
And then they'll give you every line in the world.
Yeah, but I have to be authentic with you.
And then you'll have the authentic answer, okay?
And now, if it's your mother or your father, no, no, no, that may well be.
What you try to do is, I'll tell you what my father did.
My father had a moody mother.
May she rest in peace.
Unless she's driving god nuts.
I mean, that is possible.
I don't know.
But in any event, my father would call my mother.
He was a very good son.
And through his adulthood, I mean, his mother died.
I guess he was in his 50s.
And through the end, I remember when I was a child living at home, I would see this.
It was amazing.
He'd call his mother every day, every night, from the kitchen table.
You know, it wasn't cell phone days, regular phone.
And she would start yelling at him.
It was as simple as that.
He'd call up, and she'd start yelling at him.
So he'd put the phone on the table.
I'd hear the yelling.
And then he'd pick up, and every, you know, 30, 45 seconds, he'd go, Yama, Yama, and then put it back down.
So that's the way he would not get toxified, if you will, if I'm making up a new word, and yet obey the commandment of honoring the parent.
But otherwise, by and large, there was no reason for you to choose to have such people in your lives.
That's unfortunately the answer.
Yes, sir.
Hi, my name is Mark Smith.
Which Christian high school?
Whittier.
Whittier, okay?
I got two questions.
Do you think that divorce is moral breath?
Is that you have another question?
Oh, so you want me to answer that first?
Yes, I think I am adamant about that subject.
I think, and you want to know why?
Yeah, okay, I'll tell you.
Because I don't think that innocent people should be put in prison for life.
Only murders should.
So I'm going to question it.
Like, if you're married to somebody who's feeling like community, I guess, in that sense, you smile out and cats down and agree that it's saying the other crap is worth them.
In the ultimate analysis, I think with the father warning all the time and trying to help the person be happy, that's the reason the non-moody marry moody.
They think they can save them.
You can't.
The only person who can make the non-moody into non-moody is the moody person.
There is no other person on earth who can do that.
Maybe a proper therapist who can just tell them over and over, but by and large, they're not going to see how moody they are because they don't live with them.
People are on their best behavior in a therapist's office and basically don't tell the truth because they blame everybody else for their problems.
It's one of the singular problems of therapy.
I am pro-psychotherapy, but most of it is not good because of that reason and others.
So does that answer you on both questions?
Okay, thanks.
Yes?
Going back to what Calvin said about everyone getting trophies, what led to that in society and how can we get away from that?
Great question.
What led to giving kids trophies for accomplishing nothing?
We've become a feeling-based society because of what I call on the radio, you heard of the age of renaissance and the age of reason.
My generation inaugurated the age of stupidity.
And that's what you're living in.
And that's how colleges are formulated around.
You will learn more foolishness at college.
I am very, very sorry to say, not at all colleges.
And believe it or not, not at Pepperdine.
But I don't say I don't work for Pepperdine, and I'm not even paid for this lecture.
In fact, I should be, but I'm not.
So I have absolutely no axe to grind with regard to it, but there are exceptions.
And the reason this exception is because it's taught on a different value basis.
In this case, the Judeo-Christian value system.
But most colleges are thoroughly secularized, have nothing but contempt for the Judeo-Christian value system, and they're very feelings-oriented.
And that's all that is sacrosanct.
I spoke on this subject at a secular high school, a very prominent one, around the city of LA.
I won't go further in identifying it, where it's a major, major, expensive prep school.
Many of the kids go to the most prestigious colleges in the country.
And it was when I told them that they had to act happy, even if they didn't feel it, if I had told them that there was a bomb in row six, they could not have found me more difficult to deal with.
Teachers started arguing with me.
One teacher told me how we would have no great art if it weren't for unhappy artists, which is baloney.
It's just a myth.
It's a sheer myth.
Not to mention the fact that nobody wanted to live with any of these unhappy artists.
They invariably lived alone because they chased decent people from their lives.
But it's not true.
Bach was not unhappy.
He was the greatest composer who ever lived.
And Haydn was not unhappy.
And Beethoven was moody and difficult and so on.
And he was a mixed bag.
But so what?
Believe me, Beethoven would have traded in to be happier.
I still believe he would have written his nine symphonies.
I don't think it was dependent upon being moody to write his symphonies.
In fact, Schumann, I know music rather well.
I conduct orchestras, as you heard, and I've studied it a lot.
The great composer Robert Schumann, at the end of his life, did in fact become utterly depressed, and the music from that age is not listened to.
We just don't, it's junk.
The best music he wrote was when he was in his most stable period emotionally.
Yes?
My name is Love Cherry.
I'm from Arcadia.
And you have spoken about honoring titles.
And I ask you, how do you suggest that we debate figures of authority without just back?
You mean like me?
Okay, in general.
Especially if they're not sure if you really.
Okay, I'm glad you asked that.
Okay, go on, if you're not finished, go on.
You also said that terminal positive is not a component.
Generally, the only other ones I could name would be the ones that tend to be great books-based, great books of Western civilization-based, or faith-based.
And I don't have any axe to grind here because I'm Jewish, not Christian.
But the Christian-based universities are more likely to teach you wisdom than the secular universities.
Now, as regard to your first one, how do you respectfully differ with a person with a title?
I do this for a living.
And it's very easy.
You simply say why you feel they're wrong, why you believe they're wrong, to be more precise, and you can do so as forcefully as you want.
You just don't say you're an idiot.
In other words, you don't have an ad hominem, meaning to the person attack, but to the idea attack.
Because the moment you say your opponent is an idiot or bad or whatever, then it's the end of the argument.
Then it's just, I'm nice, you're not nice, so why are we debating?
Right?
So it's very easy to do.
Just make your case.
And by the way, the more calmly you make your case, the more others will think you're the right one.
It's a trick to my show.
I'm always calm with idiots.
That was a joke, because I just told you not to call them idiots, but I never do.
And even if they are an idiot, I am calm, respectful, and people who write, oh, very common thing, how do you stay so calm?
How do you stay so calm?
That, by the way, is in fact mind-directed, because my feelings are to call the person every name, you know, sir, may I say you are one big jackass.
You know, that is what, and worse is going on in my mind.
But when I'm speaking, I say, well, let me tell you why I differ.
And, you know, the listener is thinking, wow, how does he do that?
The guy's such a jackass.
And so I'm winning just by staying calm.
Just remember that.
It's respectful and calm wins the day.
Yes, now I'll come back there.
Sorry, yes.
Hi.
Zoni, I go to McNaughton High School.
When did we go to this new relationship with the class and have a question?
Oh, you know, this is to enjoy this a lot.
By the way, is this being recorded?
Thank God, because I want a copy of it.
I do, I do.
I want to make it available to appear.
I think it's something adults need to hear.
By the way, I do believe adults need to hear this as much as you do.
I would not give a talk.
This talk would not be one word different if I talked to 45-year-old people or 65 or it doesn't matter.
When did I come to this realization?
I was given this realization in my religious upbringing.
It's called wisdom.
Wisdom is the opposite of feelings.
Because I believe that people who lived before me might have actually known better how to live a life than me at seven or eight or 17.
So I'll give you the example that I give in many of my lectures when it happened.
I went to a religious Jewish school till I was 18 years of age.
And it was in the fourth grade.
The rabbi announced, okay, okay, it's now time for the afternoon prayers.
And I walked over to him and I said, Rabbi, to tell you the truth, I'm not in the mood for the afternoon prayers.
And the rabbi thought and thought and finally said, Dennis Prager is not in the mood for the afternoon prayers?
So what?
And I had no answer.
It was a good answer.
The afternoon prayers are not instituted for if you're in the mood for them.
It's like, okay, it's time to visit a nursing home.
Well, I'm not in the mood to visit a nursing home.
Sorry, that's what we have to do today to be a good person.
And so, and in his view, to be a religious person, you had the afternoon prayer.
And I realized then my mood may not necessarily be a good director of my life.
And that rabbi, who is, I'm sure, long since passed, if he knew what that one answer, how it stuck, I remember nothing from fourth grade except one of the girls.
And I'm sorry.
Sharon.
Oh, Sharon.
Okay.
The male mind gets distracted very easily.
It's a very good problem.
Okay, let me go elsewhere.
Let's go back.
Yes, please.
Go right ahead.
Yes, sir.
The turquoise shirt.
I know you talked about musicians and how you feel that maybe you write from a more stable place, but going on the same line, since you talk about mastering your feelings sort of to please the general public, a lot of artists, specifically musicians, are faced with that decision to either write a book like truth or pleasure to the general public.
So how would you advise someone like this, or what are your thoughts on the public?
Well, this is a very, very big issue in the arts world.
And I have generally found that artists who have no interest in pleasing the public produce junk.
Okay?
The idea that the public doesn't have to enjoy my music is a 20th century idea.
It would have been unknown to any composer in the 19th century.
And by and large, they were the great ones, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and so on.
Bach was, of course, 17th century.
And they would have been, if the public didn't like it, they were shattered.
Shattered.
Because the idea that I'm only writing for myself, this romantic notion, then only yourself will like it.
What if I wrote my columns just for me?
Then me would like it.
The entire point of my column is how can I reach the public?
I'm authentic to my feelings.
The trick is to make your feelings universal.
If only you can relate to it, it's, forgive me, it's masturbatory.
That's all it is.
And much music is that.
So that's my answer, that there is no conflict at all.
There's a conflict between narcissism and great music.
Back there, yes.
A little louder, please.
A little louder.
What advice, besides happiness, can you give us that?
How to interact with people or how to be a leader?
Which ones?
They're not the same thing.
Be a leader.
Okay, thank you.
By the way, it wasn't just on happiness.
This talk gave happiness as an example, but it was on feelings.
If someone asks you, why did this guy speak about, say, mastering your feelings, not just how to be happy?
Okay, it's very, very important.
That was the message.
I'll give you one piece of advice about leadership.
You have to ask yourself why you're doing it.
If you're doing it because you need to be loved by the public, you will be a horrible leader.
Horrible.
To the extent that you want public adulation, you should never be a leader.
Go into Hollywood.
Actors have public adulation up the kazoo.
That's fine.
You want your name in lights?
Go into Hollywood.
You want to do good?
Don't care if you're loved.
That's the way it works.
That's my one word for you.
Do what is right and not what will make you loved, because you're not going to be loved anyway as a leader.
That's what a parent, by the way, that's parents' advice.
You know what I tell parents?
Look, they're going to hate you anyway.
You might as well do the right thing.
That's why parents love that line.
There's a lot more laughter when 40-year-olds hear this than when you hear this.
And when you're a parent, you'll understand how true it is.
Most of the time, what you will have to do to raise a good kid is going to be something that the kid will resent you for.
Okay?
That's just the way it is.
Okay, one more.
You want to pick the person or should I?
Okay, right here.
Hello, right here.
And you mentioned that you can do a lot with all of our ethics.
What do you deal about missing your family or missing your hand?
How do you feel about that?
Oh, that's a great question, too.
I travel a lot.
By the way, you have no idea how much.
All 50 states, nine of 10 Canada's provinces and 98 countries.
That's a lot of travel.
Next year, God willing, I will hit my 99th and 100th when I go to Cambodia.
And what was the 100th?
Vietnam, that's right, yes.
And the ones that are left are pretty esoteric, you know, like Togo, haven't been there, you know, Congo.
But I'd like to get to all of them before I leave this world.
So I love travel.
Actually, you'll love my answer.
Most of the time, I take a member of the family.
That's what I've always been.
And I've spent fortunes of money, frankly, in that investment.
So that my kids have traveled an incredible amount.
And now that they're grown up, I go with my wife, I would say, 80% of the time everywhere we go.
We were just in New York.
We were just in Toronto.
And I can't stand traveling without her.
And that comes from my money.
That's the answer.
You don't leave your family.
You take them with you.
Thank you.
You're wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I've got a huge favor.
I know we're running late, which means you're going to have to work more efficiently in Rap Group today.
But if you could, can I have half a semester?
You have half a semester?
Can I have a half a semester on what it means to be an American?
Oh, sure.
Okay.
You don't even need two and a half minutes.
Yeah.
I was asked recently, you heard about a video of me that's gotten now a million point two or three hits in four weeks.
I didn't even know they videoed it.
Sarah Palam was sitting next to me and I was talking and she was listening.
So I guess people, I guess that is how the popularity began.
But I was asked by a former senator, this was in Denver, at Denver University a month ago, and I was asked by a former U.S. Senator who was the moderator.
He asked me, Sarah Palam, and a fellow talk show host, Hugh Hewitt, what do you think the greatest problem confronting America is?
And I said, it is not the president, whatever your politics.
Nope.
The biggest problem is that we have not passed on what it means to be an American to the next generation.
And people realize that is the truth.
That's why the video went viral.
And I have a video on what it means.
It's called the American Trinity.
It's at PragueUniversity.com.
And it's only five minutes of your time, but it will tell you.
I didn't know.
I did not know.
And in my 40s, one day emptying my pockets, I saw the coins that I had in my pocket.
And staring at me since I was a child is the answer to what America's values are.
They're on every coin and have been for centuries, or at least a century and a half.
I don't know when it began.
I have to look up the date.
Liberty, e pluribus unum, in God we trust.
No other country in the world has those three as its statement of its values.
Not one on earth.
Those are the bases of American values.
You can say, I don't want them to be the values, and there is a very large portion, especially universities, are at war with all three.
Secular over in God We Trust, multiculturalism over e pluribus unum, which means from many one, and equality over liberty.
So that's the battle.
That is the battle.
Now you can say, I don't like America's values.
I want to change them.
Fine.
But you cannot deny that those have been America's values.
That's what they have been.
And there is a war in this country over those three values.
And so that's what it means.
And preserving those three will continue to make what I believe, what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that this is the last best hope for mankind on earth.
Thanks.
Thank you.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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