The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Here's an email I received from Scott, and this is he's on the verge of a mental breakdown. And I'm going to interrupt the email to give you my thoughts so you can hear the detective work going on.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

I'm sure you've received many emails about distressed people who are, of course, unhappy and on the verge of a mental breakdown. I always appear to be happy to everyone because I don't want people to worry. Notice that means that nobody will truly know you. You're constantly faking that you're a happy person and you're very unhappy.

You continue. I don't like to admit that I'm unhappy just because you automatically become a drag at the party. Now, what does that mean? You're worried about what others think of you, their evaluation. So is it that you don't want them to worry, or that you're worried they will think poorly of you, which is more often the case, or both?

So he continues, and he says that he plays the outgoing extrovert, and he pretends that his life is, in his words, PG king. He continues, "In short, I'm unhappy with my performance in college, my faith as a Christian, and my lack of motivation to keep from doing lust-filled sinful things. These things keep me from focusing on my schoolwork. They keep me from sleeping at night, and they filter into the back of my head every day. Every day I don't have thoughts of anything else but this. It's a habit I just can't break. It consumes me until I have to succumb to its sinful nature."

Well, buddy, you just made yourself a victim. That is not true in reality. Notice the words you use: these things keep me from focusing on my schoolwork. It's your choices that keep you from focusing on your schoolwork. Then you say that they filter into the back of my head. I just can't break it. If you tell your mind that you can't break it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your mind doesn't access any methods to break the thoughts about these sexy women or drugs or alcohol or whatever else you're talking about.

Then you say, "Maybe I should just admit that I'm a sinner and that Jesus died for our sins." Well, what does that serve? That doesn't serve anything, and you fall right back into the groove. So I would say that, hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is, The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Huh? The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

Then you say, "Maybe I should just admit that I'm a sinner and that Jesus died for our sins." Well, what does that serve? That doesn't serve anything, and you fall right back into the groove. So I would say that admitting you're a sinner is not the issue. You're acting against your own self-interest, and you're sabotaging your own ability to change. That's what's important.

He said, "These things are against everything I was told as a child, and my important values." Well, they're not a value unless you act on them. So I recommend something else. I might recommend that you check your promises because I suspect that the moral code you chose or you copied from your parents may be your problem. Ayn Rand, that's my favorite author who wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, you can see it on my website DrKenner.com, wrote that the purpose of morality, a moral code, is to teach you not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live—unquote—but live as a rational being.

That means with a romantic relationship, and it's one of the nicest experiences, Scott, that you can have in life—not promiscuous sex that's degrading, which you have discovered—and drinking and drugging, which robs you of your ambition, of your willingness to study, your motivation for studying. So what you want to do, Scott, is to challenge your moral code. Realize that the shortcut that doesn't require any thinking, the quick fixes, bring unhappiness. Thinking requires effort, and you need some rational thinking skills. Make sure you're in college for a purpose that you thoroughly enjoy.

There's a book, Study Methods and Motivation by Dr. Ed Locke, that you can get on my website. And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Here's an email I received from Emily. I assume that she's fairly young.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

All the girls in my grade have big breasts, all except me. I feel alone and depressed when I see them look at my flat chest or make fun of it. Please, please, please! Help me!

Emily, don't do that to yourself. Don't call yourself an outcast. You will feel like an outcast, and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You'll keep acting weird around people, like you are the outcast. You'll adopt that role for life. Don't do it.

Now, I can remember going through puberty myself in fifth and sixth grade. We probably all can. I remember I was in undershirts, and my friends were wearing training bras or real bras. We all developed at different paces. I felt behind. I know where you're at, and I was the youngest one in my class, which is one of the reasons I was way behind too. Now, I was really glad to get some training bras, even though I didn't need them. You know, people can see through the cotton shirts, and they can see, "Oh my God, she's wearing a bra." How exciting.

So it's a very big part of your life when you're in fifth and sixth and seventh grade. Now, it is a major mistake, though, to make any part of your body, whether you have a Cyrano de Bergerac nose or my frizzy hair that I was so mortified with as a kid, if you make that a condition of your self-esteem, a condition of your worth, you're off target—way off target.

So breast size should not be a self-esteem issue. Now, I remember I made my hair a self-esteem issue. If my hair was straight—this was during the days when we used to use straightening cream and iron our hair—then I felt life was good and that I was a good person. If I had a chronic bad hair day, which I typically had, because we lived in a humid climate, then I tortured myself about it. And here's the catch about what other people thought about my hair. Notice I'm focused on, "What do they think of me? What do they think of me? What do they think of me?"

Now, if you met me back then and we became friends, do you think you would have made fun of my frizzy hair? "Hey, Ellen, you got a mop on top! Hey, Ellen, what's that piece of hair doing? It looks a little wiry." Do you think you would have done that in a mean-spirited way? If you wouldn't, then don't beat up on yourself about your breast size.

Now I'm going to recommend a book if you're older. I apologize, this is more for kids going through puberty. It's called What's Happening to Me by Peter Mailey, and he shows that just as hair comes in all textures and different colors, so does breast size. Every body part we have comes in different sizes and different shapes. I just had a bunion removed, and so listen, imagine if that weren't the case. Imagine if every single woman alive had exactly the same breast size. It would look pretty odd, wouldn't it?

Think of opening up a Victoria's Secret catalog where they only sold one breast size. They wouldn't need padded bras. I mean, why? It was trendy when I grew up to have a flat chest. Marilyn Monroe, girls were seen as too chesty. Twiggy was this model, and she was a flat-chested girl. It was the unisex generation, excuse me, unisex generation, and women were supposed to look like guys, and guys like women. And you know, it just was really weird. That's my generation.

So what you want to think about is that if it changes through the generations, you can see that, you know, people—the trendy taste—you want to become independent and not be subject to trends. Make the best of what you've got. So first with yourself, make the most of it. Don't try to wear bulky sweatshirts to hide the size of your breasts. Don't worry about what other people think of you. Try to say they don't count, or what someone said to me recently, "Hasta la vista." It doesn't matter; they don't count. Don't let those thoughts enter your brain. Just say, "Good, hasta la vista" to those thoughts.

Also, don't treat yourself as an outcast. You're a good person. You're looking to make friends. You really only need one really good friend, and don't make your breast size a big deal. Don't bring it to their attention. You don't want to retreat from any of these friends. Don't draw attention to your breast size, and don't withdraw. If someone says, "You know, you're really flat, aren't you?" You can say, "Yeah, I am. That's true. It's a fact." And then move on to a different topic.

If they try to make fun of you, if the kids say, "You know, I can't believe how weird you look. You really look like a guy," you'd say, "This is the third time you've said that, and I'm wondering if you're trying to make me feel self-conscious about my breast size. Is that the case?" Usually, it puts a stop to it right away.

So I hope that helps. For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Dr. Kenner and Dr. Locke:

Many people with a strong religious upbringing have been imbued with the belief that sex is not a glorious union of mind and body, but rather a duty, a guilty pleasure that one should not think or talk about. This causes problems in relationship after relationship.

Consider the case of Dirk and Susanna. Susanna had a few healthy sexual experiences and good relationships before she met Dirk. Although her sexual history bothered him, he nonetheless asked her to marry him. Susanna loved Dirk passionately and was unrepressed in her enjoyment of sex with him, but the more she enjoyed it, the more disturbed he felt because of his upbringing. He believed that true love was spiritual and felt that Susanna's capacity for sexual pleasure proved that she was depraved. He divorced her over this issue and ruined his own happiness in the process. He lost a loving wife.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and at Amazon.com.