Timeless Wisdom: Happiness Hour - The Source of Unhappiness

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show, and it is the Happiness Hour. Here we go, everybody. You thought I'd forget, didn't you? It's the happy, happy, happy Happy hour. Yes, it is. It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour. Every week at this time, an hour devoted to happiness, come hell or high water, or, or even terrible, uh, terrible political developments.

Doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

We talk about happiness.

Happy people make the world better, and the unhappy don't.

It's as simple as that. So you have a moral obligation to at least act as happy as possible.

Everybody has unhappy feelings, but the issue is how you act. And do you work on your happiness?

You have a moral obligation to everyone in your life, first and foremost your spouse, but also your children, your parents, your friends, your co-workers, the person you sit next to in an airplane, on an airplane.

You owe it to everybody to be as happy as possible.

I don't mean delirious. I, I don't mean plastic smiles all day, but I think you know what I mean.

Now, I have a subject today which may help you immensely.

Here goes. If you do feel unhappy, I want you to identify its source.

Sounds—

it sounds unbelievably simple. Well, it is unbelievably simple, and it is the simple that people tend to avoid, but it is very simple.

It's not simple to do that, I didn't say, but it is a simple suggestion that is very powerful. And I would say at least half the people who are unhappy do not do, because there's a part 2 to this that you have to hear me out on. Again, if you're feeling unhappy on any given day, or for that matter for weeks or months or years on end, you have to ask yourself the question, what is the root of my unhappy feeling? Why did I wake up unhappy today? Why did I go to bed unhappy last night?

Why am I—

why is this an unhappy— you have to try to identify it. That's why knowing yourself is such an important factor in happiness.

Know thyself.

So you have to try to identify what it is. A lot of people can't. I have done this with people. They can't. I don't know. I'm just— I just feel lousy. I just feel lousy is, is you can't do anything about it. Imagine, forget unhappiness, imagine ill health. You can't fix a headache, you can't fix an illness if you don't know what causes it. That's, that's, how do you treat it? Doc, I really, I have this terrible pain in my stomach. And if they can't find out why, then they just rely on the hopes that it'll disappear. We— you have to figure out why you are unhappy. Now you're already calling in, but you shouldn't because you have to hear part 2. How do you know that you have done the identification accurately?

Here is the tricky part. I want you to ask yourself, if you do think you've identified why you're unhappy, I want you to ask yourself, if that were removed, would I be happy?

If that were changed, I am unhappy because— and then you, you fill in the blank. I am unhappy because—

what would you like to fill in?

I am unhappy because I have monetary problems.

All right, fair enough.

Now let us say that you had double your income. Would you be happy?

You should see him.

Okay, then, then, then, Sean, I will say to you that, uh, you are lucky. You are a lucky man. You know exactly the cause of any unhappiness in your life and exactly the solution. Now here's the problem, sir. The number of people with double and triple and quadruple your income who are unhappy is as large as the number of people at your current income. And I'm not saying— I'm not, by the way, that doesn't mean that you're wrong. That may very well be. That's my point to you folks. I want you to do two things with regard to any unhappy feelings that you have at a given time. Ask what it is. To say, I don't know, you're being honest, but you can't help yourself. You have to dig deep. I have to dig deep. It's very interesting when I have— when I'm feeling unhappy, it is very easy to say, oh God, you know, this, this will pass, which it often does. Usually, in fact, it always does. But But it's not enough. I always want to know what is it? What is it? Because first of all, then I can address it. I have the choice then of either addressing the source of my unhappiness or accepting it and thereby addressing it. Right? That's when the 12-step prayer comes into play of, you know, God grant me the wisdom to know the difference between things I can change and things I can't change. And accept the things that I can't change. So if you can change the source of your unhappiness, that's the best, obviously. Now, that's why this part gets complex. There are a lot of things going on here. Let me begin, therefore, once again. You're feeling unhappy. The first thing to ask is why. Why am I feeling unhappy? I mean, the answer may be as simple for, let's say, for some women as, well, the time of the day. That's the time of the month. That, then that's fine. You know that the— that's the answer. That should help you though, because then you know it isn't life, it isn't your husband, it isn't your kids, it isn't the world. It's your period. Okay, that's fine. That should be comforting or relaxing in and of itself. It isn't all the things I think that are doing it. It is rather hormonal. All right, that's fine, but at least you've then isolated it. You've narrowed it to what it is. So the first thing, and, and a lot of people don't know how to do this— that's, by the way, that is one of the reasons for therapy. Most therapists are not competent, but when they are competent, that's what they can do for you. By the way, most therapists are not competent is no insult. It's an insult, obviously, to the incompetent therapist, but It's not an insult to the profession. I don't think that most in any profession are terribly competent. It's just a sad, it's a sad fact of life.

And by the way, I get that from other therapists.

Every therapist that I have interviewed in my career has announced, has said on the air that he or she thinks that most of his colleagues are not competent. But if you do have a competent therapist, that's what they do for you. They help you analyze what the reasons are so you can dig it up. That's what psychoanalysis, which is 4 times a week, that's what its project was—

really knowing yourself.

Because it's not always easy to know why you feel unhappy. It's not always easy, and it may be a confrontation with real demons in your life. So, so please understand that. But how can you cure an issue that you don't know the source of? Now, there are even answers to that. I still want you to act happy even if you don't know the reason for your unhappiness, because behavior changes your mood. This may be the most complex Happiness Hour I have ever broadcast, but it's clear. I know I'm speaking clearly. It's— but it is complex because there were so many areas taking place. So part 1 is find out what is making you unhappy. Dig, dig, dig deep. What am I really— what's bothering me? What is really bothering me? Dig deep. Then, to test it, ask yourself the question: if this source of unhappiness were removed, would I be happy? Then You know, you don't know the answer for sure, of course not, but it's a way to test it.

1-800-PRAGER-776.

Now you can call. This is— has this been clear? Would you like to ask about it? Do you do this with your own moods? Ask yourself, what is the source? What is troubling me? And then ask, well, if that were removed, would I be happy?

1-800-PRAGER-776-877-243-7776.

The Dennis Prager Show, The Happiness Hour. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

All right, this is what I want you to do. This is the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. When you're feeling down, I want you to ask yourself why.

I would say half of you would be able to answer the question, and that's huge. The other half, it's a terrible problem. If you can't identify why you're feeling down, then you can't fix it. Well, I tell you, it's not fully true. Even if you can't— I take that back. You can't fully fix it, but you can fix it in a— because in a certain way, because even if you can't figure that out, you still have to work on all the other things that I've spoken about for 10 years on this hour.

In terms of your own happiness.

You still have to act happy, you still have to seek friends, you still have to seek meaning, you still have to find joy where you can. I mean, all of the thousands of suggestions, if that's not exaggerated, hundreds of suggestions that I've given, still would apply. But at its core, you've got to know why you are unhappy or feeling unhappy at that moment. Let me take your calls because, uh, this will flesh all of this out. And by the way, a test of whether or not you're right is to then ask yourself, okay, if that were fixed, would I be happy?

So if we doubled your salary, for example, that would be it.

Aha, now it's gone to a wonderful start. It's now a wonderful start. Yeah, exactly.

All right, that's very honest.

That's very honest.

Fair enough. All right, let's go to, uh, let's go to Hermosa Beach, California, and Betty. Hello, Betty. Dennis Prager.

Dennis, a long time listener since Religion on the Line.

I love your show.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I'm a therapist, um, and I think you're absolutely right. That, you know, if we are depressed, acting happy, trying to change our mood is wonderful. But also some people struggle with depression that they've had for many, many years, and it's biochemical. It's something akin to high blood pressure or migraines, and that's when, you know, a good evaluation from a psychiatrist or a psychopharmacologist is really important. Doing the work on yourself is terrific, but sometimes you need—

I couldn't agree more.

Look, I, in my book and even on today's show, I said go to a good therapist.

Absolutely.

Yes, I agree with that. Uh, though the question, and this is one for, uh, for another, for another show actually, but, uh, the, a life—

well, not a life, but many years of thinking about this question What is the trigger of biochemical depression?

And my non-scholarly layman's theory is that events trigger chemistry.

Very, very true.

Very true.

But sometimes things such as, I'm thinking about OCD, you know, patients that have recurring thoughts that trouble them or, or behaviors that they repeatedly do, something like this that causes them depression or extreme anxiety.

No, I— yeah, clearly, look, if you're washing your hands 36 times a day, not good. Yeah, you need, you need a therapy. You need, you probably need a pill.

Yeah, absolutely. And some people, right, feel bad about that. So I think it's a, it's a No, no, I'm—

that's why I'm very happy that, that you called, Betty. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yep. Okay, let's go.

Oh, what was the—

what was that line one? That was fascinating to me, and they're gone. McAllen, Texas, and Eric. Hi, Eric. Dennis Prager.

Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm a big fan.

Thank you.

I, I know why I'm not happy. Um, and it's related to someone that I care about. Her situation is terrible. She's a foster daughter that I had in my home for some time, and she was moved to a placement where since then her life has just continued to get worse and worse. Uh, until recently she was even sexually assaulted at her school, and, uh, that's just a constant source of unhappiness for me. Now I know if it was fixed, I'd be a lot more happy.

Yeah, that, that makes perfect sense, but unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it.

That's right. Yeah, it's not in my hand.

And that is, that is where you have to accept that fact, or you, you, you can't. You, you know that life has— is filled with tragedy in this world. It's particularly aggravating when you believe it's a tragedy that could have been averted, or it's human incompetence that has caused the tragedy.

That drives you nuts.

Oh, it does.

I know, I know.

Meter that goes off, and that's right. You're crazy.

All right.

Yeah, the ju— if your justice meter can drive you nuts.

I agree with that.

That's true. But, uh, you, you really now are in the classic, uh, situation of, uh, either I, I accept this or I will be miserable, and the world's misery will not only include my former foster daughter but me as well.

That's right. And I do have other beautiful daughters and wonderful—

right. But, but this is— you know what, there's, there's another way of, of dealing with this, and that is to separate pain from unhappiness.

I'll tell you how you do that.

You say, I am in pain, but I will not allow that pain to make me unhappy. That's how you do it. That—

and believe— and as odd as that sounds, Eric, and God bless you, you sound like such a decent soul, uh, it can be done.

It's done all the time physically, right? I am in pain, but I, I won't allow that to make me unhappy. I mean, there's a level of pain where you can't help it. Obviously, there are pains that certain diseases cause.

That's why people go on methadone and that people go on painkillers, of course.

But we generally tend to say, look, that's pain, but I'm still not going to become an unhappy person. I'm an unhappy person in pain. I'm a happy person in pain. That's what I'm asking you to say.

Just as I spoke, when I spoke to the doctors, at the Indiana Medical Association, and I spoke to them about happiness at their annual convention 2 years ago.

And I said to them, you have to distinguish between dissatisfaction and unhappiness. You're all dissatisfied, or nearly all of you, which is why they invited me to speak on happiness to the— through their annual convention. I didn't come there to speak about about medicine. So you have to distinguish between and divide between, separate dissatisfaction from happiness, and likewise, or unhappiness, pain. So you, just as you can say when you have the flu, I feel horrible, I am sick, but I am a healthy person who is sick. You have to be able to say, I am a happy person in pain. All right? Nobody healthy will say, I have the flu, I am a sick person. I am sick at this moment, but I am a healthy person.

Otherwise, you're doomed. 1-800-PRAGER-776, The Happiness Hour on The Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show, the Happiness Hour, and the subject today— and thank you, Jimmy, I thank him every week—

where's the real stuff in life? The topic today is, if you feel unhappy, I am asking you to ask yourself why. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. You may need the help of a therapist, you may need the help of a friend, you may— it may come to you immediately.

But it's very important to figure out why that is. To figure out whether or not it's accurate, one way to do that is to ask yourself, well, if that were solved, or if that didn't take place, would I be happy? Very often, in fact most of the time, you'll find that— not all the time, not at all, but most of the time—

you will find that when that was not an issue in your life, you were not particularly happy. So that in fact, that may not be the reason. That may be the cause of immediate pain. And I'm asking you to divide between pain and unhappiness, just as you do between, uh, between sickness and health, in the sense that you can say, I have the flu, but I'm a healthy person.

All right, anyway, let's go to some more calls, and we actually have It's the one hour of the week where there's very little dissent, but when there is, it's fun to take those. Suzanne in Portland, Oregon. Dennis Prager, hi.

Yes, hi sir.

Hi.

I'm a little nervous, but I love your show.

Thank you.

I have been through basically everything you mentioned since the beginning of the program, and I realize as life goes on, I've raised 6 children and I'm still in a very, very difficult marriage. My husband is the problem. He's not. It's all about my own attitude. I know the unhappiness being a young woman with PMS. It feels terrible. But even then you have choices. You don't have to engage in battles. You can remove yourself gracefully and say, "Talk to you later." And it is true, pain can overwhelm you. The pain to hear that a parent has cancer. Is so overwhelming and you really don't feel happy. But the happiness that I have, and I believe is coming from within, that has nothing to do with the circumstances. So I call the happiness from within joy, and I believe that's from God.

Well, as it happens, we largely agree, Suzanne, that my general thesis is precisely that, that you are the greatest obstacle to your own happiness, that we are the sources of our happiness and unhappiness. But that doesn't mean that things from outside do not impinge. I mean, I live in the real world too. It's the sort of thing where both are true even though they sound contradictory. But thank you, yes, it's largely true.

But I mean, I don't know her marriage at all. But let us just say that her husband is really an awful man.

Well, it is hard to be happy while married to somebody awful. That makes sense. You can work on yourself and work on yourself, and you should, and you should still.

And if you, for whatever reason, choose not to divorce, uh, then, then you have—

then you have chosen to make a life like that, and you must work on being happy and find happiness where you can, with friends, with interests, with loves, uh, of, of all sorts of, of, of things, whether it's literature or art or, or building a home or a million things. Yes, there— that is why I say we, we are granted usually the privilege of finding happiness in a whole host of areas. And, and yours may be different than mine for you, obviously.

Nevertheless, maybe I should have said If you feel unhappy, figure out where the pain is coming from, not the unhappiness.

Maybe that would have been even more precise, but, but for all intents and purposes, I am just speaking to one, addressing one issue, which is know yourself and know what is impacting on you.

That's, that's what I'm talking about. Let's get another psychotherapist's view on this.

A lot of psychotherapists listen to The Happiness Hour. I'm delighted.

Jonathan, Thousand Oaks, California.

Hi Dennis. Hi, pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you.

And I want you to know I've been listening to you since you've been on Religion on the Line.

Thank you again.

And one final thing about this, you're a very important person in my life.

Why is that?

Because I, uh, learn a lot from you and I—

oh good—

admire the stances you take and the—

well, thank you. All right, hold on, I don't want— I don't want to interrupt your theory here.

So he's a psychotherapist and he has another take on this matter, and I'm curious to hear it. You're listening to the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.

Chase all your cares away, play happy music, that'll help, my friends. Getting ready for the Judgment Day though, we're still perplexed on that, Alan. A judgment is coming and so you should be happy about it. Nothing you can do, so just accept it.

I'm prepared though.

Is that arrogant? No, really, is that— that's an interesting question. We ought to, we ought to do that.

If you had to be judged today, if Judgment Day were today, would you be, would you be confident that you'd be judged on the good side?

Roy, you'd be confident? Our intern Roy has announced that he is confident. How old are you, Roy? You've had ample opportunity to be a bad guy. 21. By you. How about you, sir? You're not sure. All right. All right. 1-800-PRAGER-776. The subject has been on this Happiness Hour that if you are unhappy or you wake up, it's a bad day or a bad week, whatever, you have to find out why. Why are you feeling that?

What has triggered it?

I guess triggered it is the best example.

Then you have to ask yourself, if that were removed, would I be happy? And, and that's a complex one, but it's not, not unanswerable because there's probably been a time in your life when that particular issue was not in your life. Were you happy then?

We go back to Jonathan. Our therapist on line 1. Thanks for calling again, Jonathan. So what's your take here?

Well, my take is that, um, a large percent of the population, perhaps 50% or so, um, can't really identify what is causing their unhappiness because they've, uh, pushed down their feelings and impulses and they're afraid of their emotions, and then they punish themselves for the emotions they have. Specifically, when parents are hurtful to children, in a meaningful way is hurtful, and then the child has retaliatory rage towards the parent he or she loves, then they have to go underground with their feelings even to themselves because it's too much to bear to have this retaliatory rage towards people they love. So they end up using defenses to keep themselves unaware of what is really going on with them. And, and the thought—

that sounds very plausible.

Yes.

That's, by the way, an example of where it does help to have a good therapist.

Yes.

Because you can't figure that out on your own.

Yes, and it's my contention that most therapists can't help them enough because they don't help the patient immediately start identifying their defenses. Because you can't turn against your defenses and face the truth if you keep using your defenses. And I'm talking about intellectualization, rationalization, right? Things like that.

Have you, uh, what, are you a psychologist?

Uh, well, actually, I'm a marriage family therapist, and I have a PhD in sociology. I used to be a college professor also.

Fascinating.

Well, listen, thank you, thank you very much. I'm honored that you listen. All righty, we go to San Diego, California, and Jared. Hello, Jared. Dennis Prager.

Uh, hi.

I would just wanted to say that sometimes we can't even identify what it is that makes us unhappy, and I've had those days too. So what I do I make a happiness list of things that make me happy, and usually it goes away.

That's very nice. What's on your list?

Things that make me— accomplishments in my life. I have a hearing loss, and a lot of people have said, "You know, you're not going to be able to do this or that because of your hearing loss." Looking back on my life, I've overcame things that people said I shouldn't have been able to overcome, and that makes me happy.

That's very impressive.

How are you hearing me so well now?

Well, I wear hearing aids and I've worn hearing aids since I was a kid. Hearing, you don't hear with your ears, you hear with your brain. Your brain has the real estate for hearing and if you train it since you're a child, you most likely tend to hear very well.

Fascinating.

Hearing is practice.

Well, nothing like accomplishment to make one have some degree of happiness. Uh, it's—

that's why I'm so against the self-esteem movement without achievement. I'm so against giving all the kids who play in their baseball league as kids a trophy, because then there's no—

there's no achievement.

This, uh, in fact, I've just written—

they, they, uh, they're coming out with a book next year, uh, a men's commentary on the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, and They've— I'm one of the men they asked to comment on one of the chapters. And it's a point I'll develop, I think, maybe on an Ultimate Issues Hour about this, something I've talked to you about so often, compassion versus standards, and how society has opted for the compassion and it will self-destruct because standards keep society alive, not compassion. Compassion is a beautiful trait of human beings, of course. And that we should exercise it on a daily basis. But to govern society, standards have to be maintained. And the kids, the kids that we were compassionate toward— oh, they lose, so they feel bad, we'll give them a trophy— have only been hurt. I would, even at 8, I would never have valued a trophy if I lost. I mean, the idea was absurd. What is there to whine for? If you win a trophy if you're lousy, and if you win a trophy if you're good, why, why not be lousy? Unbelievably, unbelievably simple stuff to me. All righty, let's go to, uh, let's go to, uh, Tampa, Florida, and Jeff. Hello, Jeff. Dennis Prager.

How are you, Dennis?

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, my— I'm happy and I'm unhappy at the same time. I'm on—

open.

And I'll answer to your question: if I were judged today, would I be judged on the good? I hope so, because I, I believe that if I died tomorrow, I'd be up in heaven with Jesus. I have no doubt in my mind about that.

All right, well, that gives you a lot of confidence, totally understandably.

We'll be back in a moment. And by the way, being unhappy and happy at the same time is perfectly right. It's like being sick and healthy at the same time, like I spoke about. I'm a healthy person, but I have the flu.

That's very good there, Jeff.

We'll be back.

Final segment of the Happiness Hour coming up on the Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show. Yes, indeed.

You know, I want to say something on happiness as a huge general statement that might be helpful as well. This has been and this is the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. I want—

maybe, Alan, we should put this down as a—

notice that change, folks, from Alan, write this down, to maybe we should write this down. I want to throw up.

I find that change— I know you like it.

I find that change so obsequious.

A little obsequiousness is not a bad thing.

Who said that?

Patrick Henry? A little obsequiousness? Or was it Aeschylus? It was Mickey Mantle. Was it Mickey Mantle who said that?

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Anyway, keep going, keep going. I'm enjoying this.

I'm sure you are. So this is what we should write down.

Uh, turn his mic off, will you?

There's a danger he may continue. There is no— on radio, there is no producer, uh, host relationship like ours. All the others, they laugh at the host jokes, they echo what he says, you know. No, you guys not either.

We have—

oh, by the way, that's right. Hey, hey, hey, hey, We're going to talk to Mark here. That's right. So let me be very fast about this point. I want you to always ask yourselves this question in life: what's my choice? So you have a very clear choice.

No matter how much pain you're in, you will either let it make you unhappy or you won't.

That's your choice. I mean, that— we don't have a lot of choices in life. You don't have a choice about whether you're hit by a drunk driver. You have a choice of how to react. This is all Viktor Frankl, which, by the way, John McCain said was the book that most influenced him. Thank God he said he had read it before his suffering in Hanoi.

Man's Search for Meaning, which is, I told you, one of the 5 books that most influenced my life.

Where is that up, Alan?

People always ask for that list.

Mark Eisler is going to be sitting in for me on Monday. I know Mark many years. I tried to avoid this as much as possible. Mark is a— seriously, he's a wonderful human being, a wonderful talk show host.

We are thrilled to have you, and I'm very happy you'll be sitting here. After you said that, I'm not going to come in.

It's too big a buildup.

It is.

That's right.

You can only disappoint now. That is right. But I, I just— I want everybody to know that you'll be in, and, uh, look forward to it. You do. And, and I'm gonna say, what are you gonna talk about?

How is I mean, it's going to be based on the events of the weekend.

Absolutely. All right, so do a lot of homework, as you will. All right, call in on whatever is on your mind.

This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.