The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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Happiness

What is Rational Happiness?

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Dr. Kenner: I am Dr. Ellen Kenner and the show is The Rational Basis of Happiness. We're talking about not happiness for people in general, but we're talking about your happiness. Your individual glow in life. Your feeling that you are really on the right track, or at least you're aiming in that direction, and that you have good thinking skills and that you have a good moral code to guide you, a rational moral code - not a mystical code, not an irrational moral code. Look what is happening now where people are being told they have to kill themselves and they buy into it. That's an ugly moral code. A moral code should tell you, in my favorite author's terms, my favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, not to suffer and die. But a moral code should tell you how to enjoy your life and live on this earth. How to fully flourish being honest, having integrity, having a feeling of earned pride. Not a boastful pride, obviously, and making yourself into a person that you can sleep with at night, that you admire. That's no easy task and it's not an easy task when you've been fed contradictions throughout your life. Ideas that have said, "Don't make waves or you can't fight city hall or who are you to speak? Who do you think you are? Or that's selfish. You want a career that you would enjoy? How selfish when other people -" here's a four-letter word, "Need you. That is not a healthy view of life." 

And yet it's been accepted as a moral code and most people are hopelessly confused and they wobble back and forth between, "I'm a good person because I do for everyone else but myself," and, "You know what? It's about time I did for myself. I'm going back to the gym and I'm tired of doing for everyone else." And then you feel guilty and it's just a roller coaster ride. Don't do that for yourself. If you want the gift of a lifetime, get a rational moral code. You can do that by going to my website, Dr.Kenner.com and looking at books there. Even better, you can go to AynRand.org and maybe get the Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. That's how I started and I'll tell you, I love my life now. I have worked hard to learn communication skills, to learn thinking skills, and to really learn how to flourish, to learn how to pursue my own goals and when I earn guilt, man, I need to make amends, and when I haven't earned guilt, man, I need to learn not to accept unearned guilt, which many of us accept way too quickly.

Again, I''m Dr. Ellen Kenner. My show is The Rational Basis of Happiness(r). My number is toll free, 877-DRKENNER. You can also go to my website, DrKenner.com.. My number is toll free, 877-DRKENNER. You can also go to my website, DrKenner.com.