This is a book by Dennis Prager ... I am skimming right now.

Something that I found interesting:

[color:"blue"]Everything Has a Price (chapter 25)

The nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman was once asked if he could summarize the essence of economics in a sentence.

"There are no free lunches," he responded.

This is as good an understanding of life as it is of economics. Everything has a price. With regard to happiness, there are three rules related to this law of life:

1. Make peace with the fact that everything in life has a price.

2. Determine what that price is for anything you desire.

3. Choose whether to pay that price or to forgo what you desire.

Unless you follow all three of these rules, happiness is unattainable - because you will constantly be angry at the prices you pay for everything you have and everything you do.

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....... more in a minute <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

More Prager (in blue)

[color:"blue"]TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY

One classic example of how important it is to think through the prices paid concerns questions of whether to marry or stay single. Each has great advantages, and each demands a great price.

If you decide to remain single, you gain obvious advantages - such as more freedom to do what you please when you please, not having to put up with anyone else's bad moods and idiosyncrasies (and not having anyone else to confront your bad moods and idiosyncrasies), and freedom to date whomever you want.

On the other hand, if you decide to marry, you will also gain obvious advantages - such as a partner for life, freedom from the dating scene, stability, and the growth that can only come from long-term commitment to another person. [/color]

More Prager (in blue)

[color:"blue"] You cannot have all the advantages of each choice. A good marriage can allow a fair amount of personal freedom, but no matter how free, a marriage cannot approach the personal freedom of being single. Likewise, you can have loving relationships if you are single, but they cannot approach the depth that a good marriage can.

A common problem in marriage, as in so many other areas of life, is that too many people want the advantages of being both married and single at the same time. They refuse to pay the price for being married. These people - usually men - want the security, the love, and the family that are the results of married life and the personal and sexual freedom that characterize single life.

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[color:"blue"] Whether you choose to be married or to be single, knowing the prices that must be paid in either case enables you to pay them, as you eventually must, with much more acceptance and far less anger. [/color]

Pep,

Would you say that surviving/recovering from infidelity, should it occur (there is after all a 50% chance that it will) would be a price of deciding to get married?

I love Dennis Prager and listen to him almost everyday on the radio. He does a "Happiness Hour" every Friday morning which is very worthwhile to listen to.

Dennis is very pragmatic.

On a side note: I do believe a while back that he reported he is divorcing his second wife. No judgement at all on him, just an observation.

I like the first post on the three laws of happiness. It just makes sense. I once had posted in my office his three rules for happiness. Let's see if I can remember them:

1) Don't panic.
2) Be the Captain of Your Own Ship.
3) Ughh -- thinking -- Do you remember, Pep?

The First Law of Thermodynamics says that energy under normal conditions cannot be created or destroyed, simply transformed from one type of energy to another.

The First Law of Planks' MB'ing says: ramifications of behavior in your M can not be created or destroyed, simply transformed from one type of effect to another.

being born means I have a 100% chance of dying some day ... nevertheless

I'd still chose to be born

.... risk = life

relationship = risking heartbreak sooner or later

but I think it is worth it ... others may not

it is a personal decision

Very.

And I am used to esoteric, so this thread is going to be a real challange for me to "get".

Pep'll probably be strangling me if I keep reading and posting for very long. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

there is a price to pay for everything

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

THE "AUTONOMY" CONVERSATION ON ANOTHER THREAD GOT ME "THINKING" ... SO, HERE IS THE RESULTS!

weaver, I used to be a sort of "esoteric" thinker, myself.
Dennis, among others, contributed to me seeing things differently. Not good or bad, necessarily, just different.

That's so coincidental, because I am starting to read another site and subscribe to Michael Masterson's mag (7 yers to 7 figures), and holy, moly talk about pragmatic.

It's been very good for me so far, and I think people on this planet will be able to understand it when I try to talk to them a little better than they seem to have in the past, as well. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Pep, the price I paid for my current happiness was big, but not as big as the price I would have paid had I stayed in my past wrong thinking. I would have missed out on the greatest parts of life...honor, commitment, true intimacy, true love and so many things I cannot name. What a loss for me, it would have been.

I would imagine that it is a cumulative thing, meaning one continually evaluates the cost/reward factor of different facets of happiness, and happiness is something we work for daily. It's not a one-time thing that stays with us for ever (well not unless we are one of the enlightened ones, that is).

True, there is a price I guess. Yet, that price might be too much for some people...and "cheap" for others.

I never considered the cost in marrying or having children. I wanted to marry...so "cost" wasn't an issue. I wanted children...again, "cost" wasn't an issue.

It must not have been ...because I do not remember thinking that it would cost me anything.

Hope that makes sense.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

committed

I also listen to Dennis Prager and enjoy his program. I haven't read any of his books. I also especially like his happiness hour. I also like his interviews; he had a great one yesterday.

I was surprised when he announced several months ago that he was getting divorced. This will be his second divorce, if I understand correctly. He said he was going to give the reason but I never heard what if was. Did anyone else hear what the reason was?

I wrote him an email and told him about Marriage Builders. I have heard him defend divorce and remarriage in the past and it sounded a bit too much like it had to do with not feeling 'it' anymore as being a good enough reason.

I also wondered what the circumstances were of his first divorce. He has two sets of children...one or two grown and an adolescent son (at least), I think. Being a man that has written so eloquently on marriage and happiness, I would hope that his marriage is really irreparable before he gives up on it and divorces. I was wondering if his wife was unfaithful.

Can anyone shed some light on that situation?

the price my husband pays for his sobriety is great

he gave up stuff / people (more than just the booze)

BUT

he says to me

"The price of a drink goes up every day."

and by that he means ... the longer he is sober
the happier he becomes
and to fall off the wagon would set him back to step 1

a price he does not want to pay ... so he remains sober

what he desires is serenity
the price he pays is missing out on the fun of drinking

he is comfortable with his choice

The REWARD he gets is the joy of living. I did not quit drinking because it was fun, but because it was HE11. If it was fun, I would have continued. Drinking was not fun.

dat's right <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />