Dennis Prager Show - Timeless Wisdom - Happiness Hour: Why Me?
Aired: 2026-03-27
Duration: 40:57

[00:00:00]  Your dog and a stranger are drowning.
[00:00:02]  You can only save one.
[00:00:04]  Who do you choose?
[00:00:04]  Dennis Prager says your answer reveals everything about how you define right and wrong.
[00:00:09]  In his new book, If There Is No God, Prager exposes the danger of emotion-based morality and why, without objective truth, society descends into chaos.
[00:00:19]  This isn't a religious book.
[00:00:21]  It's a rational case for moral clarity in a confused age.
[00:00:25]  If There Is No God from Dennis Prager.
[00:00:27]  Order now at PragerStore.com.
[00:00:30]  Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
[00:00:34]  Here are thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
[00:00:38]  And to purchase Dennis Prager's rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com.
[00:00:52]  Hey, it's the happiness hour on the Dennis Prager show.
[00:00:58]  You know what Janine just said to me?
[00:01:00]  I should sing along with her.
[00:01:02]  Janine wants me to lose listeners.
[00:01:05]  That way, fewer people call and she has more rest.
[00:01:08]  I get it now.
[00:01:09]  Now, actually, the public is divided on my singing during these things.
[00:01:14]  And it's reflected here because Janine likes it and Sean can't stand it.
[00:01:18]  So it's perfect.
[00:01:18]  Oh, you think I should sing too?
[00:01:20]  No, no kidding.
[00:01:20]  That's really something.
[00:01:22]  All right, everybody.
[00:01:23]  Welcome to the show.
[00:01:23]  This is Dennis Prager Show.
[00:01:24]  Every week at this time, pretty much no matter what happens on earth, I talk to you about happiness because of my deep, deep belief that happy people make the world better and that we owe it to everybody in our lives to be as happy as we can be.
[00:01:41]  And because it is one of the great achievements of life to be happy, because life works against it.
[00:01:46]  Okay, let's be honest.
[00:01:49]  It is much easier to be unhappy than happy.
[00:01:54]  Being unhappy is the easy way out.
[00:01:58]  In fact, one of the great happiness hours, and I know it from the emails that I got, the reactions of people just literally stopping me in the street, was when I talked about people who don't want to get happy.
[00:02:12]  A lot of unhappy people don't want to be happy.
[00:02:16]  That comes as a revelation to me.
[00:02:18]  It did.
[00:02:19]  I guess I was naive because to me, I don't like an unhappy minute.
[00:02:24]  The thought of being unhappy generally makes me unhappy.
[00:02:32]  It's compound unhappiness, like compound interest.
[00:02:34]  I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy about being unhappy.
[00:02:37]  And I'm unhappy about being unhappy about being unhappy.
[00:02:40]  So it's actually trebled interest.
[00:02:44]  Folks, it is an achievement.
[00:02:46]  It is an obligation.
[00:02:48]  And it makes the world better.
[00:02:50]  Can you say that about anything else?
[00:02:52]  Not much.
[00:02:53]  Not much in life is as important as happiness.
[00:02:56]  That's why I devote an hour this week.
[00:02:58]  That's why I devoted 10 years to writing my book.
[00:03:00]  And it is a puzzle to me if you like this hour why you did not read the book.
[00:03:04]  It is just a puzzle.
[00:03:08]  It's called Happiness is a Serious Problem.
[00:03:11]  I worked my tush off to write that book because I wanted to say stuff that could change lives and change my life.
[00:03:19]  And it changed my life writing it.
[00:03:21]  I realized only then how important happiness is.
[00:03:23]  I always wanted to be happy, but I never realized how important it is.
[00:03:26]  I thought it was a selfish pursuit.
[00:03:29]  But it's actually better for everybody.
[00:03:31]  It's better for my friends.
[00:03:32]  It's better for my family.
[00:03:33]  It's better for my co-workers.
[00:03:34]  It's better for you, the listener.
[00:03:36]  You think if I were here morose, you would listen?
[00:03:39]  Huh?
[00:03:41]  Think about it, folks.
[00:03:42]  I mean, there are times, you know, I really get sad over a topic, obviously.
[00:03:46]  But getting sad is not the same as being unhappy.
[00:03:49]  Of course, you have to get sad.
[00:03:51]  It's like healthy people sometimes get sick.
[00:03:54]  This is part of life.
[00:03:56]  But they're still a healthy person.
[00:03:57]  All right.
[00:03:59]  Now, I have a life-changing subject for today's happiness hour.
[00:04:05]  Absolutely life-changing.
[00:04:06]  If you think in this way, it can change almost everything in your attitude about life.
[00:04:12]  Now, listen carefully.
[00:04:16]  It is very common for people who suffer a tragedy to say, why me?
[00:04:28]  They are in a terrible car accident.
[00:04:31]  They get a terrible disease.
[00:04:34]  They are hit financially terribly.
[00:04:38]  Some loved one is hurt terribly or dies.
[00:04:42]  And people, it is absolutely natural.
[00:04:45]  I understand this.
[00:04:46]  It is entirely natural to say, why me?
[00:04:50]  Either to God or to yourself or to just to people listening to you.
[00:04:56]  Why me?
[00:04:57]  Why did that happen to me?
[00:05:01]  Okay.
[00:05:01]  Now let me tell you something, my friends.
[00:05:06]  I would like to offer you an answer by way of a question.
[00:05:14]  Nope, not even by, well, yes.
[00:05:16]  Here's the question.
[00:05:19]  When things were good, did you ever then say, why me?
[00:05:28]  If you didn't, then on purely rational grounds, you must understand that your question doesn't have much validity.
[00:05:39]  If you didn't ask why me when you were healthy, why do you ask why me when you get sick?
[00:05:49]  What?
[00:05:49]  Did you have some built-in guaranteed right to be healthy all of the years prior to your sickness?
[00:05:59]  I think people think that way.
[00:06:01]  That's part of the reason that people are doomed to being unhappy.
[00:06:08]  I believe it is your obligation, everyday things are going well for you and loved ones, to ask why me.
[00:06:17]  Then you have the right to ask why me when things don't go well.
[00:06:21]  But if you only ask it when things are bad, then folks, I mean, just on purely rational grounds, it's an illegitimate question.
[00:06:33]  Does this make sense to you?
[00:06:35]  1-8-Prager 776.
[00:06:38]  If you adopt this attitude, life changes.
[00:06:44]  1-8-P-R-A-G-E-R-776.
[00:06:48]  You see, folks, let me tell you something.
[00:06:50]  A lot of the why me folks do it over everything.
[00:06:54]  Everything.
[00:06:56]  Every day they think that they are a victim of bad circumstances.
[00:07:01]  And you know what, folks?
[00:07:03]  The vast majority of people can, in fact, go through life saying, why me?
[00:07:08]  Oh, my God, why this?
[00:07:10]  Why that?
[00:07:10]  Why me?
[00:07:12]  Everybody has that option because nobody has a tragedy-free life.
[00:07:18]  No one.
[00:07:21]  Either to them or their loved ones and being to loved ones is the same as to you.
[00:07:25]  It's not the same as it was to them, but it's still a tragedy for you.
[00:07:30]  But I tell you, folks, this is a very powerful answer to the question that you may have in your own life.
[00:07:38]  Why me?
[00:07:40]  And then you have to ask yourself, did I ask that question before that which happened to me, which now causes me to say, why me?
[00:07:51]  Now, I want to tell you that in my book and on this program, I say repeatedly that there is in fact a secret to happiness, and that is gratitude.
[00:08:04]  And gratitude means that one exp let's put it this way, one expression of gratitude is to say when things are normal, why me?
[00:08:17]  Why did I get up today and another guy had a heart attack?
[00:08:23]  Why are my children healthy and another child is not?
[00:08:28]  I mean, the whys are endless.
[00:08:31]  Why did I get a chance to go on this vacation and the vast majority of humanity never get a chance to travel 100 miles from where they're born?
[00:08:41]  I mean, did any of you ever go to Europe or Asia or Latin America or the Caribbean and then say, why me?
[00:08:49]  How many people on earth get a chance to travel as much as I just did?
[00:08:53]  I doubt it.
[00:08:56]  I doubt it.
[00:08:58]  But it's a perfectly legitimate question.
[00:09:01]  I think every American should ask, why me?
[00:09:03]  Why am I so darn lucky to live in such a free opportunity-filled country when the world is filled with so much evil and decay?
[00:09:15]  I read about North Korea and I think, why me?
[00:09:20]  Was there some divine plan that I would not be born in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula?
[00:09:28]  Why me?
[00:09:30]  Now, the truth is, they have a right, because their whole life is suffering.
[00:09:34]  They do have a right in North Korea to say, why me?
[00:09:37]  But there is an answer.
[00:09:38]  Why you?
[00:09:40]  I'll tell you why.
[00:09:41]  Because humanity stinks as a general rule, and they couldn't care less about a communist regime.
[00:09:52]  The world is animated by fighting global warming, not genocide.
[00:09:57]  That's why you.
[00:09:59]  If the world cared as much about evil as it did about global warming, hey, if the New York Times were as many editorials about North Korean starvation as it did about the Kyoto Protocols, hey hey, maybe something would happen.
[00:10:13]  Man, do I have an answer for North Koreans on why you?
[00:10:16]  Because the UN and the world, it basically couldn't care less about your suffering.
[00:10:22]  That's why you.
[00:10:23]  But let's put that aside.
[00:10:26]  Try not to bring in anything political into the hour on happiness.
[00:10:30]  I'm sorry.
[00:10:33]  Every South Korean should say why me.
[00:10:35]  Oh boy, should they be saying why me.
[00:10:39]  Why am I so lucky to be on the southern half of this peninsula, not on the northern half?
[00:10:46]  If you analyze your life, the vast majority of you should be asking why me in terms of the good fortune that you've been blessed with in so many arenas.
[00:10:56]  So that's why, frankly, I think there is an answer by and large.
[00:11:00]  There are some people for whom it is a legitimate question, by the way.
[00:11:03]  I said that, including North Koreans.
[00:11:06]  And some people in this country.
[00:11:08]  Absolutely.
[00:11:09]  For whom why me in terms of suffering is a legitimate question.
[00:11:14]  We'll be back in a moment.
[00:11:15]  1-8 Prager776, the happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
[00:11:21]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:11:28]  Here's something most people don't know.
[00:11:29]  When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account.
[00:11:34]  While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little-known investment.
[00:11:41]  Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million.
[00:11:46]  And it wasn't a risky trade.
[00:11:48]  It wasn't even insider knowledge.
[00:11:50]  It was an account that's been around since 1888.
[00:11:53]  And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year.
[00:11:58]  That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound.
[00:12:00]  Compare that to today's savings accounts, paying less than half a percent, while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power.
[00:12:08]  Buffett understood early.
[00:12:09]  Banks are great businesses, just not for savers.
[00:12:12]  If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com.
[00:12:20]  That's secret account, the numbers29.com.
[00:12:24]  SecretAccount29.com.
[00:12:29]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
[00:12:34]  Okay, everybody.
[00:12:37]  This is Dennis Prager.
[00:12:41]  And this is the happiness hour each week.
[00:12:43]  The subject is happiness for this hour.
[00:12:45]  I consider it vital.
[00:12:48]  The older I get, the more I admire people who are happy because it's an achievement.
[00:12:52]  It's so easy to be unhappy.
[00:12:54]  The theme today is the question, why me, which people naturally ask when terrible things happen in their lives.
[00:13:01]  Some people ask it, in fact, when even not terrible, just normally bad things happen in their lives.
[00:13:10]  But my question to you is very simple, a very rational one.
[00:13:14]  If you didn't say it when things were good, what right do you have to ask the question when things are bad?
[00:13:21]  To me, it's pretty elementary.
[00:13:23]  All righty, let's get some of your calls here in Denver on KNUS.
[00:13:28]  It's Kendall.
[00:13:29]  Kendall, thank you for calling.
[00:13:31]  Hi, Dennis.
[00:13:32]  You're a phenomenal teacher.
[00:13:34]  I was, after about five miscarriages, I had a son, and he was special needs.
[00:13:40]  And during that time of going through all the teaching that you need to learn to deal with a special needs child, I was always asking, why me, why me, why me?
[00:13:49]  Then he went into a critical illness with his health, and then five years ago, he died at the age of seven.
[00:13:55]  And what took me through the process of going from the you know, why was this dumped on me?
[00:14:02]  I changed my thinking to why was I chosen to have gone through this trial.
[00:14:07]  And I really believe that God did choose me, and I think that there's eternal purposes that come into play when you have the trials in your life.
[00:14:17]  And what I found is when the pain had a purpose and a special, and especially an eternal purpose, it made the pain bearable.
[00:14:26]  And the other thing that I did, I was big on comparing my life to other people, and I would compare it to other people that had lost even more than I did.
[00:14:37]  There was a family that had lost three children in a fire, plus they'd lost a baby to Sids.
[00:14:41]  There were people that always had more tragedy than I did.
[00:14:44]  And at the same time, right before he died, three weeks before he died, I was blessed with a brand new baby.
[00:14:50]  And I realized God still continues to bless me, even though he has chosen for whatever reason to have brought this trial into my life.
[00:14:58]  And I just feel like I have an obligation with compassion to teach others that there's a purpose behind the pain.
[00:15:05]  And we live in a world where we're never not going to have tragedy.
[00:15:08]  But the why me actually goes against the whole purpose and the pain.
[00:15:14]  Well, you are very inspiring.
[00:15:17]  I need you to know that.
[00:15:18]  And I'm very, very delighted that you called.
[00:15:20]  It was a very powerful call.
[00:15:23]  You know, she raises so many points here, and I just very briefly want to react to two of them.
[00:15:29]  One is, which is another subject and a very important one, is that if you believe that there is purpose to your suffering, it is totally different from if you think it's pointless.
[00:15:43]  That is why I have said, and I say this not as a challenge at all, I say it respectfully and sympathetically.
[00:15:51]  I just can't imagine why a person without a belief in God can be under the same circumstances as happy as someone who does have a belief in God, since without God, so much is purposeless.
[00:16:04]  In fact, in the final analysis, everything is purposeless.
[00:16:08]  Life is just a random chaotic event, for good or bad.
[00:16:13]  And the other one is where she said comparing herself to others.
[00:16:17]  I have a chapter on that in my book, Happiness is a Serious Problem.
[00:16:21]  And it is one of my most fun chapters because I give a great example there about how people compare themselves to others and how it's such a poor idea.
[00:16:33]  All righty, but I don't want to get sidetracked, so I'm going to take some more calls here.
[00:16:39]  And let us go to Jerry in Littleton, Colorado.
[00:16:45]  Jerry Dennis Prager, hi.
[00:16:47]  Hi, Dennis.
[00:16:48]  First time caller, so I'm a little nervous.
[00:16:50]  Oh, you don't sound it, but thank you.
[00:16:53]  When I was in high school, I had three very close friends that died in one year.
[00:17:00]  I was supposed to go one night with a couple of them, and I was not able to go because I was working.
[00:17:10]  And next morning, I woke up and found out that they were in a car accident, a fatal car accident.
[00:17:18]  So I said, well, you know, why me?
[00:17:21]  Why am I being spared?
[00:17:22]  That's right.
[00:17:23]  That's a very fair question.
[00:17:24]  You know, and later on, I found out that, you know, I had a lot of things going for me.
[00:17:32]  And I feel that I was spared mainly because, number one, that I could help those families that had lost some good friends of mine and their own kids.
[00:17:44]  So it's, you know, it still hurts a little bit.
[00:17:49]  But you learned to ask it in the right way very early in life.
[00:17:53]  Absolutely.
[00:17:54]  Yeah, thank you very much.
[00:17:55]  Another powerful call.
[00:17:57]  I think it's very interesting how someday some states come in and they dominate the calls.
[00:18:02]  So on the question of why me and suffering, it seems Colorado.
[00:18:06]  Here's another one from Colorado.
[00:18:09]  Amy, also on KNUS.
[00:18:11]  Hello, Amy, Dennis Prager.
[00:18:12]  Hi, Dennis.
[00:18:13]  Thanks for your shows.
[00:18:14]  We really appreciate them.
[00:18:16]  I am responding to the other woman who called from actually Colorado.
[00:18:21]  And she was saying that she had a special needs child and that she was chosen by God to take care of this child.
[00:18:29]  And I have a special needs child as well.
[00:18:31]  And I have more of a question for you than I don't believe that God has chosen me to take care of David because I don't believe that he chose me to have a beautiful life.
[00:18:44]  I have a wonderful life and I thank him every day because I am so lucky.
[00:18:50]  And I don't think of it as why me.
[00:18:53]  I think of David as a gift to me from God and that I ask him for the fortitude and the strength and the courage to do what I can for him and to help him.
[00:19:04]  And because if you think that it was imposed on you, then you get into the question of why would God give you a child that is special needs?
[00:19:14]  And so I take it all as I'm the luckiest person in the world.
[00:19:20]  And he's given me gifts.
[00:19:21]  He's given us our family gifts that people would think it took him till he was 11 years old to ride a bike.
[00:19:30]  And I wanted to stop people on the street and say, do you know that my son just learned how to ride a bike?
[00:19:35]  It was so exciting.
[00:19:36]  But we take so many things for granted.
[00:19:38]  And I think that I'm grateful that I've been shown, you know, the purer things in life are the things that really do make you happy.
[00:19:47]  But I don't think God chose me to take care of David.
[00:19:50]  But rather.
[00:19:51]  But rather, that it happened, and I'm choosing God to help me create the best life I can for both of us.
[00:20:01]  Well, you know, I'm not taking sides between the two of you because I think they're both beautiful reactions.
[00:20:07]  I can't prove either one correct.
[00:20:09]  You're both right.
[00:20:10]  When I'm not being critical of that other mother, I'm not being critical of her.
[00:20:14]  I just, because I think we're both coming at it sort of at the same, you know.
[00:20:18]  Well, no, it's not the same, and that's the beauty of it.
[00:20:22]  And in fact, the two of you encapsulate the two most powerful theologies that I know of.
[00:20:29]  One is God chose me to go through the following difficulty or challenge or experience, whatever you want to call it.
[00:20:38]  And the other is yours, that I have chosen God to be with me in what I am doing.
[00:20:46]  Yours, by the way, is reflected brilliantly in Harold Kushner's major book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, which had a deep impact on me, and that is what he says.
[00:20:55]  God bless you.
[00:20:56]  Back in a moment, I'm Dennis Prager.
[00:20:58]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:21:05]  Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning.
[00:21:08]  You can only save one.
[00:21:09]  Who do you save?
[00:21:11]  Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways.
[00:21:15]  One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure.
[00:21:21]  Why?
[00:21:21]  Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong.
[00:21:26]  But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions.
[00:21:31]  And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all?
[00:21:36]  In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.
[00:21:48]  If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are, in effect, affirming God.
[00:21:59]  If There Is No God by Dennis Prager.
[00:22:01]  Available now at PragerStore.com.
[00:22:03]  That's PragerStore.com.
[00:22:08]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
[00:22:12]  All righty, everybody.
[00:22:13]  This is Dennis Prager.
[00:22:17]  Thank you for being with me.
[00:22:21]  This is the happiness hour, and it is a big subject that I've chosen.
[00:22:27]  The question, why me, which people ask when tragedy hits them, and it's totally understandable and totally natural to ask that.
[00:22:35]  I am proposing, though, that at least intellectually, let's now take it out of the realm of pain and emotion.
[00:22:43]  Intellectually, you don't have the right to ask the question if you didn't ask the question, why me, when things were good for you.
[00:22:53]  We're no more deserving of all the blessings of life than we are of all the curses of life.
[00:23:00]  Seems to me that that's a fair analogy, even whether you believe in God or not.
[00:23:05]  To Louisville, Kentucky, WGTK and Tim.
[00:23:08]  Hello, Tim, Dennis Prager.
[00:23:11]  My hero, Dennis Prager.
[00:23:12]  You're very kind.
[00:23:13]  Thank you.
[00:23:14]  I tell you, this hour gets me through the week.
[00:23:20]  I can't say that it's a tragedy.
[00:23:23]  What I can say is this is what I'm amazed by, and I've come to you for my answer.
[00:23:30]  We're going through, my wife and I were going through just financial difficulty.
[00:23:35]  And you know that that's the hardest thing that can happen to a couple.
[00:23:38]  Well, it's not the hardest, but it's very, very hard.
[00:23:41]  It's up there tied with others.
[00:23:43]  Go ahead.
[00:23:44]  Definitely.
[00:23:45]  Well, my wife the other night, just, you know, pretty much in tears, is like, why us?
[00:23:52]  People our age seem so much better off when we keep getting knocked down, trying to sell our house.
[00:23:58]  You know, that's a whole nother story.
[00:24:00]  But everything just seems to keep beating us down financially and going forward.
[00:24:06]  And I told her, whenever you feel like that, could you look?
[00:24:10]  We have a 17-month-old daughter.
[00:24:12]  Could you look at our daughter and say, why us?
[00:24:16]  When you see her?
[00:24:17]  Why were we given this perfect child when there are so many poor people who have sick children or have babies?
[00:24:26]  Or who would give all of their money to have a child?
[00:24:31]  Exactly.
[00:24:31]  Exactly.
[00:24:32]  It just amazes me how negativity is so effortless for people, but that's what I always say.
[00:24:41]  It's much easier to be unhappy.
[00:24:43]  And being positive is almost impossible for some people.
[00:24:48]  If changing that, if I can just change that in one person, in just my wife, that would be amazing.
[00:24:55]  But more people need that.
[00:24:56]  I suppose that.
[00:24:57]  So she listened to this hour?
[00:24:59]  No, this is nap time for baby, and so she takes it as a nap time too.
[00:25:06]  But I've been looking for it on the internet to pull up some of my favorite shows, and she knows about you from the book.
[00:25:14]  And we didn't get a chance to come see you.
[00:25:15]  Well, I am sorry about that.
[00:25:17]  I had a great turnout for the GTK.
[00:25:20]  Oh, yeah, I heard.
[00:25:21]  Get together.
[00:25:21]  It was a great time.
[00:25:23]  Listen, you might want to play for her this hour because the show is repeated over and over on the internet.
[00:25:34]  So there's no cost to you.
[00:25:36]  And I mean, you could buy it, but given your financial state, I don't want to even make an offer to sell you anything.
[00:25:42]  But you can for the next 24 hours.
[00:25:45]  I hear this.
[00:25:47]  Great.
[00:25:47]  But I would like her to hear it about the why me question.
[00:25:51]  Right.
[00:25:52]  And sometimes it's more powerful from a stranger than from a husband.
[00:25:56]  Exactly.
[00:25:56]  And it's so easy to say, like you said, it's so easy for everyone to point.
[00:26:01]  It sounds like when somebody's saying why me, they want to point all around them for what is actually going on, but it's inside themselves.
[00:26:10]  Yeah.
[00:26:10]  Oh, boy.
[00:26:11]  You're very wise.
[00:26:12]  You really are.
[00:26:13]  Thank you, sir.
[00:26:14]  Thank you very much.
[00:26:14]  No, he is wise.
[00:26:15]  That's exactly right.
[00:26:19]  Look, you know, a lot of couples have gone through financial difficulties, and sometimes it's bonded them.
[00:26:27]  It's not necessarily devastating.
[00:26:31]  It's necessarily painful, but it isn't necessarily devastating.
[00:26:38]  All right.
[00:26:39]  Let's see more here.
[00:26:44]  Okay, Marty in Port Angeles, Washington on KKOL.
[00:26:47]  Hello, Marty.
[00:26:48]  Dennis Prager.
[00:26:49]  Hello, Dennis.
[00:26:50]  Thank you again for such a wonderful happiness hour.
[00:26:53]  Thank you.
[00:26:55]  When I was healthy, I did tell, I never said why me, but I did tell people how lucky I was.
[00:27:02]  I had a husband.
[00:27:03]  I had four children.
[00:27:04]  We had a good life.
[00:27:06]  And then I took a terrible fall about seven or eight years ago that totally handicapped me.
[00:27:12]  And for a few months, I did go through why me.
[00:27:16]  And then I began to think in terms of how lucky I am again.
[00:27:21]  I still have my wonderful husband who now does such neat things as calling me yesterday from work to make sure I took my paint out.
[00:27:30]  There you go.
[00:27:30]  I want to comment on this when we return.
[00:27:36]  All righty, everybody.
[00:27:37]  Welcome back.
[00:27:38]  The Dennis Prager show here.
[00:27:40]  The last call on this, the happiness hour of the show, every Friday at this time on happiness.
[00:27:47]  And the Marty, that was a powerful call.
[00:27:51]  Again, I tell you, this woman who is capable of being grateful in the midst of the suffering that she has, I have devoted this hour to offering you a very important rational response to the question,
[00:28:08]  why me, when tragedy hits you, and that is, if you didn't ask why me when blessings hit you, then at least rationally speaking, not emotionally speaking,
[00:28:21]  there's no right to ask it now.
[00:28:25]  I want you to walk through life feeling you are as undeserving of your blessings as you are undeserving of your sufferings.
[00:28:38]  That's what I'm saying.
[00:28:40]  And that immensely increases your gratitude in life.
[00:28:48]  All righty, and let's go to David in San Bernardino, California.
[00:28:53]  David Dennis Prager, hi.
[00:28:55]  Hi, Dennis.
[00:28:56]  Sorry, I'm a little nervous.
[00:28:58]  First time I've ever called a radio show.
[00:29:00]  I'm honored that I'm the first.
[00:29:01]  Thanks.
[00:29:02]  But I respect you very much.
[00:29:03]  Thank you.
[00:29:05]  I just want to make a quick point.
[00:29:07]  Me and my wife, we're both Christians, and we've been going through a financial, really financial stressful time right now.
[00:29:14]  And it's amazing because spiritually we've grown so much going through it.
[00:29:21]  We've prayed a lot more.
[00:29:22]  We've gotten into the word.
[00:29:24]  And we've asked why.
[00:29:25]  But as a Christian, I believe that we really don't deserve anything.
[00:29:31]  Anything we have is a blessing from the Lord.
[00:29:34]  And I just want to say it's been amazing because spiritually we have grown through the tough time that we've gone through.
[00:29:42]  And it's just a point I wanted to make.
[00:29:46]  Well, that's a very powerful point.
[00:29:47]  Thank you.
[00:29:48]  And I want, I hope that I wish that the wife of the husband in Louisville could hear you say that.
[00:29:55]  See, it's a you have to, you see, this is the even larger question is relevant here, or a larger issue.
[00:30:03]  And that is that by and large, happiness is a decision.
[00:30:08]  We don't think that way.
[00:30:09]  People think that happiness is a feeling that comes over you that you don't have control of, like the weather.
[00:30:18]  The weather is either sunny or cloudy or whatever, but you don't have any power over it.
[00:30:26]  And that's how people think about happiness or unhappiness.
[00:30:30]  I have no power over it.
[00:30:32]  It happens to me, but it doesn't.
[00:30:35]  It does in a way, but you also have a choice.
[00:30:39]  Now, not all the time.
[00:30:41]  There are biochemical factors.
[00:30:44]  There is the instant reaction to terrible tragedy and so on.
[00:30:51]  But folks, if a blessed life, health, wealth, opportunity, and all the good things that we associate with being happy did that, made people happy,
[00:31:05]  then the folks in Hollywood would be the happiest people in the world.
[00:31:09]  But read their memoirs.
[00:31:11]  That's why I consider Hollywood memoirs to be very valuable.
[00:31:14]  I wrote that in the book, too.
[00:31:17]  All righty.
[00:31:19]  And Carlos in Santa Monica, California on KRLA.
[00:31:23]  Carlos Dennis Prager, thank you for calling.
[00:31:24]  How are you doing, Dennis?
[00:31:25]  Hi.
[00:31:26]  It's been a while since I've listened to you.
[00:31:29]  I don't know if this is a coincidence, but I asked the same question about in the same question I had asked myself in October.
[00:31:36]  I had what was supposed to be a simple appendix and there being a ruptured intestine, a colon intestine, and it basically poisoned my stomach.
[00:31:45]  And had I not gone that day into the hospital, I wouldn't be around.
[00:31:48]  And I thank the Lord for that, that I am still alive.
[00:31:51]  You should.
[00:31:52]  This is one of the things I had to make some little notes down because when you're on the radio, sometimes you forget.
[00:31:57]  That's right.
[00:31:58]  A lot of people do.
[00:31:59]  So what I did was I put down basically: when we're good, we forget our Lord.
[00:32:04]  When we're bad, we pray.
[00:32:06]  In life, we ignore when we're good.
[00:32:09]  But when we're bad, we look at all the healthy things we can do to make our lives better, and then we ignore it again.
[00:32:15]  When it comes down to our spouses, for the most part, we take it for granted.
[00:32:22]  But when we're bad, they're the ones that are going to be holding our bedpen.
[00:32:26]  And when it comes down to our families and friends, we usually don't give them a call, but they're there for support when we're in bad or when we're in need.
[00:32:34]  And that's basically what I'm going to tell you because this really I asked the same question a week after I was in, you know, after I got home.
[00:32:43]  Good.
[00:32:43]  I was weeping and saying, why me?
[00:32:45]  That's right.
[00:32:46]  That's right.
[00:32:46]  God bless you, and welcome back to the program.
[00:32:50]  Let's see.
[00:32:51]  Over to Michelle in Redondo Beach, California.
[00:32:55]  The Californians are coming in now.
[00:32:57]  Hi.
[00:32:57]  Hi, Michelle.
[00:32:58]  Hi.
[00:33:00]  I wanted to say that, well, first of all, my ex-husband has this habit of sitting in traffic in Southern California and saying, why me?
[00:33:08]  What did I do to deserve this?
[00:33:10]  Wait a minute.
[00:33:11]  Why did he do to deserve the traffic?
[00:33:14]  For him to be sitting in.
[00:33:15]  That is pretty funny.
[00:33:16]  Dina, that is the funniest call I ever received on a subject of such seriousness.
[00:33:23]  A human being would ask, why me in traffic?
[00:33:26]  Yeah.
[00:33:26]  Well, it's a very good question.
[00:33:28]  Why me and everybody else in traffic?
[00:33:30]  I mean, it's not, you see, I would love to be with him when he asked it.
[00:33:35]  And I say, well, is the guy in front of you not permitted to ask the same question?
[00:33:40]  Well, I think that was what my answer was at the time.
[00:33:43]  He's my ex-husband.
[00:33:45]  Well, most people tend not to describe exes in flattery ways, but if indeed you're accurate about him, I understand why the marriage didn't flourish.
[00:33:56]  Yeah.
[00:33:57]  But I also have a problem with the opposite kind of a statement.
[00:34:01]  When somebody sees somebody who's got some misfortune and they say, there for the grace of God go I, I hate that phrase just as much as why me because I think that that's really arrogant of somebody to think that God made an unfortunate person unfortunate.
[00:34:20]  You have hit my favorite theological question, and I am no closer to an answer today than when I first posed it on radio 20 years ago.
[00:34:29]  And that is, does God, is God the source of our suffering?
[00:34:37]  And I am absolutely in the middle because I think, and that's what I said to the two callers earlier, the two women calling from Colorado.
[00:34:46]  There is a powerful argument in both directions.
[00:34:50]  I want to deal with that when we come back, Michelle, because it's very powerful.
[00:34:57]  We'll be back in a moment.
[00:34:58]  1-8 Prager776.
[00:35:00]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:35:07]  Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning.
[00:35:10]  They can only save one.
[00:35:11]  Who do you save?
[00:35:12]  Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways.
[00:35:17]  One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure.
[00:35:22]  Why?
[00:35:23]  Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong.
[00:35:28]  But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions.
[00:35:33]  And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all?
[00:35:37]  In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.
[00:35:49]  If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are, in effect, affirming God.
[00:36:01]  If There Is No God by Dennis Prager.
[00:36:03]  Available now at PragerStore.com.
[00:36:05]  That's PragerStore.com.
[00:36:10]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
[00:36:15]  Dennis Prager here, and this is the final segment of the happiness hour, but don't go away because there's more, of course, of the Dennis Prager show.
[00:36:23]  But I wanted to comment on that last issue.
[00:36:26]  I'm talking about the question of why me.
[00:36:28]  And this isn't only for religious people at all.
[00:36:32]  This is absolutely as applicable to a secular person who asks why me when tragedy hits, but they have not asked why me when blessings hit.
[00:36:42]  You have to ask it both times in order to ask it when tragedy hits.
[00:36:48]  But the last issue Michelle raises, a wonderful call, Michelle, is it is, I don't know this answer.
[00:36:57]  I alternate and I have for 20 years.
[00:37:01]  One day, Alan, let's do that.
[00:37:04]  I want to do that for an hour once.
[00:37:06]  Which is the more compelling view that God wills the bad things that happen to us or that God does not will bad things to happen to us,
[00:37:22]  but that we can reach out to God to be with us when those things happen.
[00:37:31]  Man, I have, I don't know, I don't know.
[00:37:34]  And there are people like Michelle has said that's a terrible thing, terrible thing to say that God would will a bad thing to happen to somebody.
[00:37:43]  But I don't know.
[00:37:45]  We don't know God's ways.
[00:37:47]  His ways are not our ways.
[00:37:48]  I don't know.
[00:37:49]  It's a fascinating question that I don't have an answer to.
[00:37:52]  I think both are perfectly legitimate traditional theologies.
[00:37:58]  I have an apology here to Bruce in Upland, California, who holds the record this hour, holding on 41 minutes and excuse me, 43 minutes and 53 seconds.
[00:38:11]  But I'm not going to get a chance to take any more calls now because I want to sum up this hour.
[00:38:15]  So CJ, Kate, Bruce, Robert, the other lines whose names I don't see, forgive me.
[00:38:21]  But I tell you, I know for a fact that if you adopt the attitude that I have expressed this hour, you will be a much happier human being.
[00:38:33]  And that is while things are relatively good in your life, health-wise, and the health of loved ones, and you're not financially in a horrible position or whatever other pain that you ask every day,
[00:38:50]  why me?
[00:38:51]  Why am I so lucky?
[00:38:56]  That is the question to be asked in order to give anybody permission to ask why me when bad things happen.
[00:39:04]  It just makes perfect sense.
[00:39:09]  Gratitude is the source of happiness.
[00:39:11]  It is the secret to happiness.
[00:39:14]  And if you walk around expecting nothing, and by golly, that's what I do.
[00:39:20]  And by the way, I learned that from Buddhism.
[00:39:22]  I believe that there are things to be learned from religions that are not our own.
[00:39:27]  Buddhism taught me to expect nothing.
[00:39:30]  I adopted that idea, and I walk around pinching myself about how lucky I am.
[00:39:36]  Don't go away.
[00:39:38]  This is the Dennis Prager Show.
[00:39:41]  This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
[00:39:45]  Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's rational Bibles.
[00:39:58]  Here's something most people don't know.
[00:40:00]  When Warren Buffett was just 13 years old, he didn't put his money into a savings account.
[00:40:05]  While other kids were earning next to nothing at local banks, Buffett put $114 into a little-known investment.
[00:40:12]  Today, that $114 would be worth over $15 million.
[00:40:17]  And it wasn't a risky trade.
[00:40:19]  It wasn't even insider knowledge.
[00:40:20]  It was an account that's been around since 1888.
[00:40:24]  And over the last 25 years, it's averaged 29% a year.
[00:40:28]  That's what happens when your money is allowed to compound.
[00:40:31]  Compare that to today's savings accounts, paying less than half a percent, while inflation quietly eats away at your buying power.
[00:40:38]  Buffett understood early, banks are great businesses, just not for savers.
[00:40:43]  If you'd like to see what some investors call the 29% account, go now to secretaccount29.com.
[00:40:51]  That's secret accountthenumbers29.com.
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[00:40:57]  Mm.