Speaker 1: On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 2: Want to come on the air, young man. I want
Speaker 2: to put on his mike. This is totally spontaneous. My
Speaker 2: older son is in from Florida. When he was a
Speaker 2: little kid, he'd come to my night show that I
Speaker 2: did in Los Angeles and often would sleep during the show. David, welcome.
Speaker 2: It is a joy to have you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And I think that since that time, I've
Speaker 3: had to have radio or television or something on while
Speaker 3: I fell asleep, and I always wondered why.
Speaker 1: That's coming off on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, and
Speaker 1: it starts right now. Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Speaker 1: Here thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic
Speaker 1: radio programs. Had to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. Go
Speaker 1: to Dennisprager dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, it's the Happinest hour. And remember come hella,
Speaker 2: high water, lice, vermin, smiling of the firstborn. Darkness does
Speaker 2: not anything happens, It does not postpone the Happiness Hour, everybody.
Speaker 2: It's the happy, happy, happy Happy. That's correct, my friends,
Speaker 2: because the happy make the world better and the unhappy
Speaker 2: make the world worse. You have a moral obligation to
Speaker 2: act as happy as possible, if not actually be as
Speaker 2: happy as possible. Happiness is a moral virtue, not a
Speaker 2: psychological state. Woohooh that's big, and that's my thesis. Happiness
Speaker 2: is a moral virtue. It's easy to be cranky, it's
Speaker 2: easy to be miserable. It's tough to be happy in
Speaker 2: a difficult life is difficult, or, as I like to
Speaker 2: put it, life is relentless. Want to come on the air,
Speaker 2: young man. I want to put on his mic. This
Speaker 2: is totally spontaneous. My older son is in from Florida,
Speaker 2: and I don't know when the last time is that
Speaker 2: you were on any of my shows, David. David is
Speaker 2: a father himself. It makes me a grandfather. And you know,
Speaker 2: every grandfather thinks that his grandkid is the cutest. But
Speaker 2: I know it. Hey, that's the thing. Others think it. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'm slightly more rational than that. While he is unbelievably adorable,
Speaker 2: there is a possibility, however faint, it may be that
Speaker 2: others are just as cute. It's hard to believe. Dave
Speaker 2: has been in my broadcast studios from the beginning, well,
Speaker 2: not from the very very beginning. I'm broadcasting one year
Speaker 2: more than you're alive. You're twenty nine. Correct. You want
Speaker 2: to give him a mic? Yeah? Are we good? I
Speaker 2: want to say correct again. I'm not hearing him try
Speaker 2: that other mic. I'm sorry, Dave. This is totally spontaneous.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. He had no idea. He came back
Speaker 2: from the men's room and I told him you might
Speaker 2: be on a talking on a national radio show. But
Speaker 2: he's very calm. You're in anyway, you're twenty nine, I'm
Speaker 2: broadcasting thirty years. When he was a little kid, he'd
Speaker 2: come to my night show that I did in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and often would sleep during the show, and it
Speaker 2: was very humbling for me when you put your own
Speaker 2: child to sleep while broadcasting. David, welcome. It is a
Speaker 2: joy to have you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And I think that since that time, I've
Speaker 3: had to have radio or television or something on while
Speaker 3: I fell asleep, and I always wondered why. I thought
Speaker 3: it was because I was bottle fed, but I think
Speaker 3: it's actually.
Speaker 2: That was good. All right? Today is open line for happiness.
Speaker 2: Give me a call one a prager seven seven six.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna chat with David a little bit here while
Speaker 2: you folks call and any subject, it's I set the
Speaker 2: agenda forty eight out of fifty two shows. Let's say two,
Speaker 2: I take off and you hear a best of so
Speaker 2: forty six out of fifty I set the topic four
Speaker 2: times a year. I have you do it? You know
Speaker 2: that he's even texting now. This generation texts. I think
Speaker 2: that there are your generation. There will be people who
Speaker 2: will be dying as they die. They will be texting,
Speaker 2: dying just about to leave the earth and with some initials. Dave,
Speaker 2: welcome back to La. How does it feel to come
Speaker 2: back to La where you grew up?
Speaker 3: It was funny because I love where I live, and
Speaker 3: I live in Miami, but coming back here, the one
Speaker 3: thing I noticed, as I told you last night, was
Speaker 3: was I walked out of the terminal. My glasses did
Speaker 3: not fog up. Because I have been on the East
Speaker 3: Coast for about ten years now, and in August, wherever
Speaker 3: you are on the East Coast, it's humid. So it
Speaker 3: was interesting to be in a place where your glasses
Speaker 3: didn't fog up. Outside of that, not too much of
Speaker 3: a reaction. It's great to be back. Great to be
Speaker 3: with friends and family, but being away so long in
Speaker 3: some ways it you know, it doesn't feel it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel as if I'm coming home necessarily because it's been
Speaker 3: so long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I understand. It's like when I go back
Speaker 2: to New York, right. I know I grew up there,
Speaker 2: but I don't feel Elvis is home. When you move,
Speaker 2: you move exactly, but you are still an LA teams fan. Yes,
Speaker 2: absolutely see. That doesn't leave people. It's so interesting. I
Speaker 2: always marvel at that when I'm at a Dodger game
Speaker 2: and they're playing the Cubs in half the stadium, our
Speaker 2: Chicago Cubs fans.
Speaker 3: It's like that in LA, in in Miami two for
Speaker 3: two reasons. Number one, the fans, I'm sorry to say
Speaker 3: in LA and Miami are not that vocal and loyal
Speaker 3: to their teams. And also too, it's just part of it.
Speaker 2: You should have been at Kings games. I just want to.
Speaker 3: Say, when they were winning the Stanley Cup.
Speaker 2: That's true, okay, But also people move.
Speaker 3: To those cities so much that people, like you said,
Speaker 3: retain their team loyalties, so when they come to those cities,
Speaker 3: they want to see their teams play.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I understand that that's and that's going to
Speaker 2: be true for you if the Angels come to Florida
Speaker 2: or the right exactly exactly all the Lakers.
Speaker 3: Though, with my son, I will permit him to root
Speaker 3: for to root for Miami teams. I don't want him
Speaker 3: to feel like an outsider.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting point where the parent pushes onto the
Speaker 2: kid the allegiance to a city they never been to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a very interesting point. Exactly. Hey, this is the
Speaker 2: Happiness Hour, and I know this is almost a silly question,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to pose a tough one to you.
Speaker 2: What would you say off the top of your head,
Speaker 2: because I know you think these things through, but I
Speaker 2: still am putting you on the spot. And you don't
Speaker 2: represent an entire world of twenty nine year olds. I
Speaker 2: recognize that. But to the best of your ability, what's
Speaker 2: the biggest obstacle to happiness in your generation?
Speaker 3: I think it's two things. Number One is, we grow
Speaker 3: up with so much materially that we've begun to take
Speaker 3: so much for granted. We just expect so much to
Speaker 3: be there. And when you have, as you've spoken about
Speaker 3: so many times in your book on the show, when
Speaker 3: you have high expectations, it's hard for those expectations to
Speaker 3: be matched. And when expectations aren't matched, you stop. It's
Speaker 3: harder to be happy. So it's hard to have low
Speaker 3: expectations with so much materially. Second is that when you
Speaker 3: have so much materially, it's harder to find a purpose
Speaker 3: in life. For so many generations and in much of
Speaker 3: the world, people's purpose, in my opinion, is to put
Speaker 3: food on the table. But when you almost expect that
Speaker 3: to be taken care of, either by yourself or by
Speaker 3: your parents, because by and large most of us have
Speaker 3: food on our table, we have to find a purpose
Speaker 3: other than survival. And that's when things, i think, get
Speaker 3: very tricky. As you said about the last hour, people
Speaker 3: are bored, so they need to find a purpose to
Speaker 3: do something because they have so much materially that that's
Speaker 3: Since that's taken care of, they have to find something
Speaker 3: else and that becomes the biggest challenge.
Speaker 2: So you feel that in a lot of your peers,
Speaker 2: that's a problem.
Speaker 3: Lack of purpose, yes, lack of purpose, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: sense of well, sense of comfort.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more And obviously I'm not
Speaker 2: agreen because you're my son. This is my son, David Prager,
Speaker 2: and I just figured since he was in town and
Speaker 2: he came to visit at the show, that I would
Speaker 2: share him a bit with you. One A Praguer seven
Speaker 2: seven six The Happiness, the Happiness Hour. Let me take
Speaker 2: some of your calls. It's an open line. A Happiness
Speaker 2: Hour will begin in Phoenix, Arizona. And Tony Hi, Tony,
Speaker 2: Dennis Prager.
Speaker 4: Hi, Dennis Hi. I just want to let you know
Speaker 4: yesterday it was your birthday, and it was my daughter's birthday. Also,
Speaker 4: I haven't seen in over twenty five years, and I
Speaker 4: called her, I left a message and wished a happy birthday,
Speaker 4: and I just want to let you know that your
Speaker 4: birthday inspired me to do that.
Speaker 2: Well, I got the chills actually, because that's one of
Speaker 2: my and I use the word crusades in life, and
Speaker 2: that is to have parents and children who don't talk
Speaker 2: to one another talk to one another. May I ask
Speaker 2: why the twenty five year gap, but well.
Speaker 4: I also have a son I haven't seen too, he's
Speaker 4: forty two.
Speaker 2: Why my ex.
Speaker 4: Wife poisoned them? You know, I didn't have a custody
Speaker 4: of them, and I was out west here in Phoenix
Speaker 4: and it just got worse and she just you know,
Speaker 4: you know, when you hear poison all the time, you
Speaker 4: get poison yourself.
Speaker 2: Did you get her response from your daughter?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: No, I've written letters over the past years and called
Speaker 4: but I was just inspired yesterday by your birthday to
Speaker 4: call her and wish her a happy birthday.
Speaker 2: Tony. I really pray, and I don't do that much.
Speaker 2: I don't ask God for much. I asked God to
Speaker 2: have your daughter respond to you. We'll continue. You're listening
Speaker 2: to the Dennis Prager Show, the Happiness Hour.
Speaker 1: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless.
Speaker 2: Wisdom Happiness Hour. Dennis Prager's show's talking to my son
Speaker 2: who's twenty nine visiting from Miami, and he was I
Speaker 2: asked him what he thinks the biggest obstacles to the
Speaker 2: happiness of people his age are, and I agree with
Speaker 2: him the purpose issue. Once, once you have enough food
Speaker 2: and enough shelter, what do you do? What do you
Speaker 2: do for purpose? Yes, and that should be a subject
Speaker 2: unto itself, But because it would end the political I'm trying,
Speaker 2: I won't speak about it. Much right now. Anyway, this
Speaker 2: is the open line, which I do a couple of
Speaker 2: times a few times a year on the Happiness Hour.
Speaker 2: I was talking about texting. I was ribbing my son
Speaker 2: about his texting and saying your generation people will be
Speaker 2: dying and texting that they're dying. My wife just sent
Speaker 2: me this article, actually this news report from yesterday from
Speaker 2: August second at Huntsville, Alabama. A college student from Texas
Speaker 2: believes he is lucky to be alive after a terrible crash.
Speaker 2: He was texting and driving while when his truck flew
Speaker 2: off a cliff. Chance bothees or Bothe's truck plunged off
Speaker 2: a bridge and into a ravine. One of the last
Speaker 2: things he typed indicated what almost happened to him. He wrote,
Speaker 2: I need to quit texting because I could die in
Speaker 2: a car accident and then went over a cliff. I
Speaker 2: can only laugh because he's okay, but it does it's
Speaker 2: a funny story. All right. Let's take let's take some
Speaker 2: of your calls here and let's go to Christine's open
Speaker 2: Line Happiness Hour, Fraser Park, California.
Speaker 5: Christine, Hi, Hi, Dennis, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Where is Fraser Park.
Speaker 5: It's south of Bakersfield.
Speaker 2: Actually, I was going to guess it, and I didn't.
Speaker 5: It's a pleasure to talk to you. My husband and
Speaker 5: I are avid listeners, and I always say, thanks to
Speaker 5: Dennis Prager, my husband converted from left to right.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you were already on the right.
Speaker 5: I'm so far right, it's scary.
Speaker 2: Well, you owe me. You know you should send me
Speaker 2: a cigar.
Speaker 5: Okay, I should. Yes, congratulations, it's conservative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know what's funny. I'll tell you what
Speaker 2: is funny. Women call up at thank me for converting
Speaker 2: their husbands to being conservative. Men call up or tell
Speaker 2: me privately, thank you for having my wife listen to
Speaker 2: your male fe mail hour and being more receptive to
Speaker 2: certain overtures. So men have a different game plan.
Speaker 5: Yes, I agree with you. Well that's kind of why
Speaker 5: I called, because thanks to you, I had a conscious
Speaker 5: decision to be happy. You know, I'm of an age
Speaker 5: where I spent the seventies growing up small child through
Speaker 5: my teenagers being brainwashed by the feminist left. You know,
Speaker 5: a woman without a man is like a fish without
Speaker 5: a bicycle, and that sort of got shoved down my throat,
Speaker 5: you know, even through Sesame Street, et cetera, and all
Speaker 5: the media and thanks to you in a happiness hour
Speaker 5: and me embracing my face getting right with God. I
Speaker 5: made this conscious decision to be happy because I realized
Speaker 5: if I was responsible for my happiness, I was obviously
Speaker 5: responsible for my unhappiness. And I was essentially always angry
Speaker 5: at my husband for not being psychic, not knowing intuitively,
Speaker 5: you know what my needs were, what my desires were,
Speaker 5: you know what needed to be done around the house,
Speaker 5: et cetera. Basically, I was angry because it wasn't all
Speaker 5: about me. And then one day I just decided to
Speaker 5: be happy and be the kind of wife my husband
Speaker 5: wanted me to be in his marriage. I decided to
Speaker 5: take the first step, and my husband turned on a dime.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you, I was nice first, and that's
Speaker 5: all it took. And our marriage is fabulous. We had
Speaker 5: some rocky times in the past. We've been together twenty
Speaker 5: four years, we have two children, and I'm happier than
Speaker 5: I have ever been. I mean, all it took was
Speaker 5: I mean, it started about five years ago. I took
Speaker 5: my first step into a synagogue and I was like,
Speaker 5: it's like God whacked me on the forehead and said,
Speaker 5: what took you so long? You know you're finally here.
Speaker 5: And it was like an epiphany and I just decided
Speaker 5: that I'm going to make more of an effort instead
Speaker 5: of being so selfish. And my husband responded immediately.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you why were your last words, I'm.
Speaker 5: Sorry at the end of the work day, we can't
Speaker 5: wait to see each other.
Speaker 2: Well, well, you know what better than a cigar? And
Speaker 2: now I'm being very serious. I'd like you to say
Speaker 2: some of these things on a little video and email
Speaker 2: it to me. Oh okay, I'm very serious. It would
Speaker 2: mean the world to me. God, bless you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Love to your husband. I decided to treat him nice
Speaker 2: and then he turned on a dime. That's it. That's
Speaker 2: it for the vast majority, not all, there are some
Speaker 2: real loser men, but for the vast majority, or the
Speaker 2: great majority of men, that's that's what it takes. That's it.
Speaker 2: Some men that they well, nothing will work. I fully
Speaker 2: grant that happy wife, happy life is a very a
Speaker 2: variant of that. It's not identical, but it's it's related.
Speaker 2: But that's what that's really what it takes. The woman
Speaker 2: I've always said the woman. I believe the woman makes
Speaker 2: the marriage if the if the man is a decent man.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about men with very serious psychological problems,
Speaker 2: or men who are addicted to a drug or alcohol,
Speaker 2: or or or or I'm certainly not talking about serial
Speaker 2: philanderers or anything like that. But for the average decent guy.
Speaker 2: And the average guy is decent in America. Let me
Speaker 2: tell you that's all that really is what it takes.
Speaker 2: And I was very, very power full, very eloquent call,
Speaker 2: and I thank you. All right, Let's go to Kaylee
Speaker 2: in Dallas, Texas. How old are you, Kaylee?
Speaker 7: I'm seventeen years old.
Speaker 2: How do you spell your name?
Speaker 7: Ka y l e y?
Speaker 2: Is that the normal spelling of Kaylee?
Speaker 7: I think there are a lot of normal spellings with Kayley.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought. Okay, anyway, thanks for calling. What's
Speaker 2: on your mind?
Speaker 7: Well, your texting commentary reminded me of my theory about texting.
Speaker 7: You know, humans have always been writing to each other,
Speaker 7: from the pony Express to emails, but you know that
Speaker 7: was the pony Express obviously took months and you know,
Speaker 7: up to years going across the oceans. Now, you know,
Speaker 7: we text and you know, it seems to be a
Speaker 7: natural sort of way of communication for humans. I just
Speaker 7: think it's different now because of the instant gratification factor, very.
Speaker 2: Very intelligent point and you're welcome and go on, and
Speaker 2: therefore what.
Speaker 7: And therefore, you know, maybe there's a reduced amount of
Speaker 7: you know, joy you get from talking to someone. But
Speaker 7: on the other hand, you could be happier because you're
Speaker 7: in constant.
Speaker 2: Communication with the great a man, a man I deeply respect.
Speaker 2: Just last night said to me he thinks that your
Speaker 2: generation talked to one another less because of texting. Do
Speaker 2: you agree?
Speaker 7: I do agree.
Speaker 2: That's interesting that we'll be back in a moment happiness.
Speaker 2: Our Dennis Prager Show.
Speaker 1: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless wisdom.
Speaker 5: It's so important to make someone happy.
Speaker 2: Make just one, Jimmy Duranti, thank you, sir. Yes, it
Speaker 2: is nice. It's hard to make somebody happy. It's a
Speaker 2: beautiful song, but it's hard. My theory is, you make
Speaker 2: yourself happy, and ironically then all those around you will
Speaker 2: be happier. People want to be around happier people. Oh,
Speaker 2: I can't believe it. The call I was about this
Speaker 2: is the most frustrating part of talk radio. The call
Speaker 2: I was about to take. Somebody wanted to ask my
Speaker 2: son a question, and then they hung up, And there's
Speaker 2: nothing you can do. Should I ask the question anyway?
Speaker 2: Because I read it? Yeah, so somebody. I don't even
Speaker 2: know what city. Nothing it matters, I guess, but they
Speaker 2: were going to ask you in light of your mom's
Speaker 2: at my divorce, your own happiness and its effect on you.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it had. It definitely had effects.
Speaker 3: I know it had effects in terms of happiness, I
Speaker 3: don't think so. I think that the one of the
Speaker 3: most important things for kids to grow up in, It's
Speaker 3: pretty obvious, is to be in a happy house. And
Speaker 3: if two people are staying together and can't be happy,
Speaker 3: then then it's going to affect the kid adversely. In
Speaker 3: addition to that, I think we model a lot of things,
Speaker 3: whether we want to or not, from our parents, And
Speaker 3: if we see a loveless marriage, then wouldn't we model
Speaker 3: our marriage after that as well? Potentially, So, I think
Speaker 3: having two parents married is obviously the ideal, but it's
Speaker 3: but having two happy homes is better than having one
Speaker 3: unhappy home. I think what happens though a lot is
Speaker 3: is I've seen, is that people attribute their happiness to
Speaker 3: getting divorced. Do they think that if they get divorced,
Speaker 3: they'll be happy. But that's just shifting the blame of
Speaker 3: their their happiness to somebody else. And as you say
Speaker 3: all the time, you're responsible for your own happiness. So
Speaker 3: it's a it's a challenge, but I think I think
Speaker 3: ultimately if people say they're staying together for their kids,
Speaker 3: it's also bad because the kids.
Speaker 2: Will know.
Speaker 3: And that'll reinforce the children that the only thing that
Speaker 3: matters in a parent's life is their children, which is
Speaker 3: not good because when you hear that, it's a recipe
Speaker 3: for narcissism.
Speaker 2: Whoh, good stuff, all right, thank you, Dave. Dave's visiting
Speaker 2: from Miami and came to the show, and I figured
Speaker 2: i'd introduce him. I don't think. I don't. When was
Speaker 2: the last time the best thing we ever did? Do
Speaker 2: we have it? We don't have it in our archives.
Speaker 2: That's terrible, Sean. I think the best we ever did.
Speaker 2: David and I announced the game sitting at an Arizona
Speaker 2: Diamondbacks game in Phoenix. That was great. It was great.
Speaker 2: It was we've never played that. Hey, Dave, have you
Speaker 2: heard me going down the ice with Wayne Gretzky.
Speaker 3: I think it's amazing. I think it was hilarious. I did.
Speaker 3: I listened it to it with my brother in Miami
Speaker 3: and we were cracking out.
Speaker 2: It was hilarious.
Speaker 3: I thought it was great.
Speaker 2: That's my other son.
Speaker 3: I thought the thought of you on ice skates was
Speaker 3: actually fine.
Speaker 2: Oh that's painful. That is I did ice skate all right,
Speaker 2: As it happens. I even bought ice skates when I
Speaker 2: lived there.
Speaker 4: King Sun down a line of Wayne Gretzky along with Luke,
Speaker 4: Robotie and Dennis Prager. Retzky wins the face up, he
Speaker 4: gives it the robot Duck, Robatie gives it to Dennis Praeger.
Speaker 2: Here's Freger to kind of rice.
Speaker 4: With Gretzky, two on one break, Gretzky back to Prager.
Speaker 4: He stumbles and Paul.
Speaker 2: Very humiliating.
Speaker 3: That's probably what would have happened.
Speaker 2: Ie. What am I going to say? All right, let's
Speaker 2: go to some more of your calls. This is really
Speaker 2: an open, an open happiness hour here. And uh, let's
Speaker 2: go to Don in Levine Arizona.
Speaker 8: Hi, Hi Dennis. I appreciate you too, Dave.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 8: It's good to There's a proverb I believe that talks
Speaker 8: about wisdom being born out or lived out in our children,
Speaker 8: and I love to have your family on there and
Speaker 8: to see that that born out in life. But I
Speaker 8: began listening to your Happiness hour as well as your
Speaker 8: male female or with my seventeen year old son and
Speaker 8: last week on Friday, because I'm trying to invoke some
Speaker 8: conversation and some debate with him, because he's at the
Speaker 8: point right now where he's kind of he's smarter than
Speaker 8: most people, including his father, and so I want to
Speaker 8: I want to kind of stimulate conversation with him. So
Speaker 8: we were talking last week about how how love is
Speaker 8: the best motivator.
Speaker 9: And he began to challenge that, and he was stating
Speaker 9: a couple different examples, one of them being that if
Speaker 9: you were asking any of the kids in his Christian school,
Speaker 9: is what motivates them to do better in school? And
Speaker 9: he was convinced that it was out a fear, And
Speaker 9: I said, well, even in that, don't you believe that
Speaker 9: a love for yourself could be a more positive reason
Speaker 9: why you're doing well in school rather than the fear
Speaker 9: of getting a poor grade and reflecting poorly on you.
Speaker 2: Interesting debate will be back in a moment. You're listening
Speaker 2: to the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
Speaker 1: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, Dennis Prager here the Happiness Hour on the
Speaker 2: Dennis Prager Show. The last caller. This is really open
Speaker 2: line Happiness Hour. We do it about three or four
Speaker 2: times a year. That's it. Otherwise, I set the gen
Speaker 2: non happiness and you and I discussed that particular topic.
Speaker 2: My son, who is visiting in La from my ame,
Speaker 2: is in studio. I've been talking to him as well.
Speaker 2: That was That was an answer that I think affected
Speaker 2: people when they asked you. You were very open about
Speaker 2: effects of divorce on your happiness. I to the best
Speaker 2: of my knowledge right now, and I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: you're you're a pretty happy guy. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah
Speaker 2: one A Prager seven seven six. The last caller raised
Speaker 2: the question because he's he's having a discussion with his
Speaker 2: seventeen year old son. What's more animating fear as I
Speaker 2: recall it, fear or love. Though he spoke about love
Speaker 2: of self, I'm not a big fan of love of
Speaker 2: self per personally. I never used that term. And if
Speaker 2: somebody said, do you love yourself? I never ever think
Speaker 2: of whether I love myself. I've never thought of it.
Speaker 2: I don't even I don't even understand it, and I'm
Speaker 2: not knocking it. I'm just saying I don't understand it.
Speaker 2: I try to earn my respect that in regard to
Speaker 2: how I feel about me, I think always of the
Speaker 2: term respect. Do I respect me? I don't think about
Speaker 2: do I love me? But anyway, love and fear, I
Speaker 2: don't care. One animate's good behavior I read to you
Speaker 2: recently is a terrifically interesting study. People who believe in
Speaker 2: hell act better. People who believe only in heaven don't
Speaker 2: act as good as decently as people who believe in
Speaker 2: hell as well as heaven. How do you like that?
Speaker 7: So?
Speaker 2: I that's why you know? It says, And I did
Speaker 2: this on an Ultimate Issues Hour which we read brought
Speaker 2: asked I think recently, should you fear your parents right?
Speaker 2: Which is a biblical command? It says, it says, honor
Speaker 2: your father and mother and it says fear your father,
Speaker 2: your mother and father. I know some people like to
Speaker 2: translate it as hold in awe, and there is there
Speaker 2: is that element. If it's not fear, asn't be scared of,
Speaker 2: but it's fear, and there is an element of fear.
Speaker 2: As I've often commented, I'll never forget. The teenager said,
Speaker 2: do you do drugs? He said no. I said why not?
Speaker 2: He said, because my mother would kill me. I never
Speaker 2: heard a teenager say I wouldn't do drugs. As I
Speaker 2: love myself, I may, and I'm not knocking it. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying I don't. I think fear animates much more
Speaker 2: of the lack of use of drugs. And that's all.
Speaker 2: Like I only care about some about behavior. If I
Speaker 2: wrote a you know, if I wrote a if I
Speaker 2: wrote a sixth book, which I had had to write
Speaker 2: a sixth, seventh, and eighth, but my ninth book would
Speaker 2: be behavior is everything. That's the motto of what I
Speaker 2: convey politically and in happiness and morally. Behavior is everything.
Speaker 2: And the problem is we live in the age of feelings,
Speaker 2: not the age of behavior. And if that was transmitted
Speaker 2: and received clearly, that's a very big deal. In how
Speaker 2: you will look at life. The emphasis from the sixties
Speaker 2: was on feelings. Love. Everything was about love, love, love.
Speaker 2: It should all be about behavior. I don't care if
Speaker 2: people love me. I care if the people I love
Speaker 2: love me. But the other eight billion people or seven
Speaker 2: billion people, I care how they behave toward me, not
Speaker 2: if they love me. I don't care if America is loved. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a big deal. All right, Let's go to some
Speaker 2: more of your calls. Lawrence in Phoenix, Arizona's really coming
Speaker 2: in today, Hello Lawrence. Dennis Prager, Hello.
Speaker 10: Dennis, thank you for taking my call.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 10: I have to thank you so much listening to you
Speaker 10: for as long as I have been. I have young
Speaker 10: children and six year old son, and I think that
Speaker 10: a lot of what I learned from you make me
Speaker 10: go from a very good dad to potentially a great dad.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm very, very touched. Give me one example.
Speaker 8: Well, I'm a firm believer in leading by example.
Speaker 10: And one day I was driving my son to swim lessons.
Speaker 10: He was about four, and he was talking about someday
Speaker 10: having a family of his own, and I said.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're going to be a good dad. And he says,
Speaker 8: oh yeah.
Speaker 10: And I said, well, what's going to make you be
Speaker 10: a good dad? And he said, well, I'm going to
Speaker 10: play with my kids and I'm going to love their mother.
Speaker 2: Wow you said that at four? Yeah? Yeah, what's he
Speaker 2: gonna say at six? There's nothing left?
Speaker 10: Well, you know what he might say to his kindergarten classmates,
Speaker 10: huh is uh, let your.
Speaker 8: Behavior control your feelings. Because he hears that a lot.
Speaker 2: They're gonna they're gonna kick him out of schoolf.
Speaker 10: Well, no, we're we're going to a school where a
Speaker 10: lot of that that is welcome.
Speaker 2: Well that if he knows that thing on behavior and
Speaker 2: he feels that way about how important it is the
Speaker 2: way the dad treats the mom. You got some kid there,
Speaker 2: and if I played the slightest role in that, I
Speaker 2: am very very happy that that is. So thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, and let's go to uh uh. Let's see here,
Speaker 2: let's go to uh Jonathan in Idlewild, California. Hi, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: Dennis Prager, Jonathan going once, Jonathan going twice. Jonathan is gone.
Speaker 2: All right, Carol, what's on your mind? Hello? Carol? Where's Carol?
Speaker 2: Are you going?
Speaker 9: Dennis?
Speaker 6: You have a fan based in Arizona today.
Speaker 2: Boy, it's mind blowing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to get your thoughts on this texting
Speaker 6: thing because I'm a mom of teenagers and I've even
Speaker 6: seen the difference from my oldest child who's twenty four
Speaker 6: to now my current teenager who's almost fifteen. And what
Speaker 6: I see with these kids is because they are texting
Speaker 6: so much and there's less face to face conversation, that
Speaker 6: because they have that protection of seclusion somewhat that they're
Speaker 6: just so open.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I'm going to comment on that. Natch Dave about it.
Speaker 2: He is a little song I wrote.
Speaker 3: You might want to sing it for non.
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 2: Who's doing this? This is not Bob Brley, right, Bobby McFerrin.
Speaker 2: So I was with a woman from Jamaica and I
Speaker 2: told her I used this on the show. We couldn't
Speaker 2: remember who it was, Dennis Prager here the Happiness Hour.
Speaker 2: This was open line. There were so many wonderful calls.
Speaker 2: It's very painful if I obviously can't get to everybody
Speaker 2: and back to you, Carol, you were saying, what about
Speaker 2: texting and intimacy, Well, I guess.
Speaker 6: What I'm saying is what I'm seeing, and I'm seeing
Speaker 6: a difference even between my oldest kids and now my
Speaker 6: younger kids, is this openness. There is no stiff upper lip,
Speaker 6: There is no stoicism. If you are sad, if you
Speaker 6: are hospitalized with suppression, if you are taking medication. It
Speaker 6: is in your text, it is on your Facebook page.
Speaker 6: I mean, there is absolutely what I'm seeing like no boundaries.
Speaker 6: And I don't know, is that just a generational thing
Speaker 6: and that's why I'm uncomfortable with it or is this
Speaker 6: a I know there's potential harm in it, but I
Speaker 6: just I think it's really interesting that these kids, and
Speaker 6: because they're so open through their texting, they're actually more
Speaker 6: open in person now too.
Speaker 5: I mean, there is nothing.
Speaker 2: Let me bounce that, and that's very very interesting. Let
Speaker 2: me bounce it off. The youngest person in the studio,
Speaker 2: my son David, is twenty nine. How do you react
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: I actually I don't totally agree. I think that what's
Speaker 3: happened with not texting but social media like Facebook. And
Speaker 3: I'm a victim of this too, but people just put
Speaker 3: any random thought that they have on so but it's
Speaker 3: it's usually usually they From what I found, people are
Speaker 3: still pretty private about their most personal issues, so they
Speaker 3: leave that to friends. I don't think that there's a
Speaker 3: huge issue interpersonally with texting. I think that sometimes it's
Speaker 3: you can get lost in translation with texting. I think
Speaker 3: what happens sometimes is if you're texting on an iPhone
Speaker 3: or a smartphone, they'll they'll give you an auto correct
Speaker 3: when you're trying to type out something, and and and
Speaker 3: I've seen some wild misinterpretations. So outside of that, I
Speaker 3: don't find a huge I don't find a huge deal
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 2: My it's an an interest, very interesting and important question
Speaker 2: is it Is it substitute for real talk? I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know, and I don't think
Speaker 2: anything can ever substitute for real talk. My son and
Speaker 2: I were just talking about this during the break. The
Speaker 2: most human thing, in some ways is your voice. When
Speaker 2: I hear a record of my mother, she is more
Speaker 2: alive than when I see a picture of her.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Speaker 2: We found the cassette that answers the question when was
Speaker 2: my first happiness hour? This is from January nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: The first Happy Hour.
Speaker 1: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless wisdom with
Speaker 1: Dennis Prager. This has been timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Speaker 1: Visit Dennisprager dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures,
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