The discipline of gratitude

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Mary Reichard (0:40)

You're listening to a special weekend edition of The World and Everything In It. I'm Mary Reichard. Today we're talking about an urgent question facing anyone walking through a deep trial. How do you choose gratitude when life takes a devastating turn?

My guest is Dennis Prager. He's a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, author and founder of PragerU. His latest book, written with assistance from Joel Alperson, is titled If There Is No God, The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil. Prager practices orthodox Judaism. Jews and Christians share a great deal, the Old Testament and adherence to particular values, known as Judeo-Christian values. Obviously, the most important thing to Christians is the divinity and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Prager understands that. This interview, however, focuses on facing life's greatest trials with gratitude, regardless of your situation.

In our conversation, we break down Prager's experience with severe paralysis after a life-altering fall, how long-held convictions shape personal resilience, and why he argues that happiness is ultimately a moral choice.

So, just to set the table a little bit, you know, I talked to Joel Alpersen about the book, the contents of the book. So, I feel that we covered a lot of ground. He explained everything beautifully. I wanted to talk to you really about the part of your career that most touched me, and that was your happiness hour. I listened to your interview with a woman recently who asked you a couple of questions that I will also ask you. But my audience is conservative Christian, so it's a different audience, but so much in common, and so I want to get to that. I loved it that even after 9-11, the Friday after 9-11, you still had the happiness hour. That was your long-standing weekly hour devoted to the subject of happiness. So regardless of the calamity, happiness is still a serious problem, to name another title of one of your books.

Dennis Prager (2:51)

I still have the happiness hour after becoming quadriplegic.

Mary Reichard (2:57)

And you have a special understanding now, so talk to us about that.

Dennis Prager (3:01)

I've been able to handle this calamity. I fell in my home, in my bathroom, on November 12, 2024

And as a result, I was deeply compromised in breathing, couldn't speak because the nerves to my diaphragm had been injured severely. And I was rendered quadriplegic. I'm paralyzed from the shoulders down. And I have been able to handle it. It's awful. I don't handle it by denying how awful it is. That being able to move your arms and legs is a curse. Okay, I'm not going to in any way sugar-coated.

But I, in effect, had prepared myself for calamity in my attitudes towards happiness.

They are in Happiness Is a Serious Problem, written 30 years ago, could have been written yesterday. I say with absolute certitude, it would change the lives of most people who read it. It's called Happiness Is a Serious Problem.

I know, I obviously want to get in part to my latest book, if there is no God, but this is really important.

Mary Reichard (4:35)

Well, it is.

Dennis Prager (4:36)

So what I did, I wrote an article, it's on the internet, and it was my way of explaining how everything I wrote in Happiness, about happiness, prepared me to withstand the shock of my paralysis. For example, and then I read from the book to show that I wasn't in any way paraphrasing the book, literally word for word, from the book from 30 years ago. For example, that I learned in college, not to have expectations. The more expectations you have, the less gratitude you will have, and the less gratitude you will have, the less you can be happy, because gratitude is the mother of happiness.

So I expected nothing. I even wrote, do I expect to wake up healthy tomorrow? No, I do not. Am I healthy today? Yes. Do I acknowledge that, of course? Do I expect to be unhealthy tomorrow? No. But I don't expect to be healthy. One day I will wake up and not be healthy. I knew that day would come. It has come sooner than I wanted. But it has come.