The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

On the selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Drkenner.com

Right now, I'm going to turn to our after-hours line with a question. Someone asks about rap music.

Hi, Dr. Kenner. My question for you is, what is your opinion of rap music? Do you consider it shallow, I mean the lyrics and things, or is it possible for a person, an intelligent person, to enjoy rap music? For instance, can you say that although lyrics may be inappropriate and demeaning, that the melody or the beat to the song you can enjoy and you can appreciate that kind of dichotomy.

It's sounding to me like you love rap music, or you enjoy it a lot, and there's someone in your life who's saying this is immoral. I mean, this is a bad sign of your character. I mean, if you can be attracted to this, what does it say about you—that's not fair. You need to be able to introspect. What is it that you love about the rap music, and what type of rap music? There's a lot of rap music that's crap music, with foul lyrics, disgustingly revolting lyrics. I mean, sometimes I keep it on just to educate myself. And of course, there's always the rubbernecking factor—are you kidding? Are they really saying that? And sometimes it's just even the beat that is offensive, but sometimes there is a really catchy beat, and that beat may be something that, if it were in a better song, you would love the beat, but you love the beat anyway.

And I know I hated rap music when it first came out. I thought it was disgusting. Of course, it's the next generation, so I always dislike what the next generation comes up with to be an affront to this generation. And I thought it was awful. I just—I was repulsed by it. And then I found myself in dance studios dancing, and occasionally there'd be some really, like, hunkered-down sexy music, and then there'd be a little rap in it, and I liked it. So you need to know how to ask yourself: what is it I'm attracted to? What don't I like about it? What am I sidestepping in order to learn the skills of introspection? Hope that helps.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Do me a favor and stop saying that I'm pretty, and that I'm not fat, okay? Because it makes me uncomfortable. I'm the girl who, you know, gets really good grades and is not afraid to be funny, and I'm the girl who has a lot of friends who are boys and no boyfriends. I'm not beautiful, okay? And I never will be, and I'm fine with that, you know. But when you go around saying that I'm something that I'm not, it's just—it's not nice.

And you can really like her. I mean, she's being so honest about it. She's not pretending that she's pretty when she isn't pretty physically. But she knows she's a good person, and she doesn't like phoniness—that's from Shallow Hal. Have you been the victim of false praise? Is there someone in your life, maybe a parent, who is always giving you superlatives? "Oh, you're the best kid ever. You do everything right." Always the superlatives, and you end up walking away feeling inadequate, insecure, because the compliment didn't fit. It didn't fit at all.

One of the best skills you can give yourself in this situation is to learn how to be honest like she was, to directly confront the person that's giving the praise and to tell them, "Listen, you're trying to make me feel better. I'm feeling worse." Or maybe you're anxious about something coming up, like you have to go in for an operation. "Oh, everything will turn out okay. Don't worry about it," but there is a high risk. Let's say they've diagnosed you with cancer. You need to tell them that's not helping, and then let them know what will help. What will help is if you say, "I hope everything turns out well. Let's hope for the best." Or tell them what would be better to say—they need to know that.

So dealing with specifics: when you give a person a specific—like if this guy said to her, "You know something, you're really funny. The last three times I've been with you, I've been in stitches. I feel very comfortable around you, and you've told three very funny jokes." Well, if she just told three very funny jokes, then the shoe fits, and the praise fits. And if you've done something well, if you want to give a compliment, you always want to stick as close as you can to the specifics. What did you observe? What did you see? What did you feel? And feed that back to the person. "You know, I noticed that you paid a lot of attention to detail at this party—that you went out of your way to have very nice hors d'oeuvres, and your house looks lovely. And I know what work went into that because I know you're moving now, and I appreciate it. I'm having a wonderful time today."

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Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who is world-famous for his theories in goal setting.

To have self-esteem, start with the premise that you are, in principle, worthy of your own happiness. Reject as outrageous any doctrine that says you are born evil. In reality, you are born neutral. You create your own moral character. Further, if you have accepted the altruistic idea that you exist merely to please and serve others, you are doomed from the start because you have decided that others are worthy of achieving their own values, but you are not. Selfless people cannot have self-esteem because they have no self to esteem.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com