In this brief excerpt from a YouTube conversation, Dennis Prager argues that happiness and pain are not opposites; rather, the opposite of happiness is unhappiness. He reflects on moments when he felt intense personal pain, recalling a scene driving on a California freeway and assuming other drivers had no problems while he was suffering. He acknowledges this self‑centered view and cites a line attributed to Joseph Telushkin’s mother, suggesting that the only truly happy people are those we don’t know well. The dialogue highlights how people often underestimate others’ hidden struggles and how personal pain can coexist with happiness.
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Every happy person has had pain. If pain invalidated happiness, very few people could say that they're happy. Pain is— the opposite of happiness is unhappiness, not pain.
Do you ever look around at random people and wonder what the cost they're bearing is?
Well, I'll tell you that the— this will humanize me even further, which is fine. So I remember at the most painful moments of my life, driving on a freeway in California, looking at all the cars going in the other direction thinking, they don't have problems. I have problems.
It's so easy.
And I knew, of course it is. Well, that's the great, you know, the Helen Telushkin line, right? Joseph Telushkin's mother. Yes, yes. It's a great one. The only happy people I know are people I don't know well.
Well, here's another consolation, and it hearkens back to even if you're in a period that you wish were different, appreciate the era that you're in. I had a friend say to me recently that we were talking about if something romantically would percolate for one of us. I forget. This was a few months ago. And she said, on both of the individual's ends. The situation is evolving. And I thought, I love that word evolving because a consolation for you in your life is that life is always changing. You are not going to be in the same place a year from now as you are today because you, you hopefully you're endeavoring to do better with your life, but also things around you are changing. You could get a call that you're fired from your job, or you could get a call that you're transferred, or you could get a call from another company. Life is constantly evolving around you. Hopefully not just you, but other people. You actually don't know what could happen, for the better or for the worse. Does that make any sense? Yeah, of course. People go, "Oh God, I'm going to be stuck in this forever." That's not true.
