The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 25 - Your Career Won't Make You Happy

00:00:00.000 So there's an article on the Daily Wire yesterday about the former first lady, Michelle Obama.

00:00:05.840 Maybe you remember her.

00:00:06.880 She was at some kind of women's conference and she was having a conversation on stage

00:00:12.140 with an actress from the show Black-ish.

00:00:14.740 The actress is named Tracy Ellis Ross.

00:00:17.300 Never heard of her, but she's an actress apparently. 0.99

00:00:19.460 And the women were lamenting the fact that girls still dream of weddings and they still 0.87

00:00:26.160 dream of Prince Charming.

00:00:27.340 This is a problem in the eyes of Michelle Obama and this other woman. 0.99

00:00:31.620 The two agreed that some women, Tracy Ellis Ross apparently included, can sacrifice family 0.83

00:00:38.660 for the sake of a career and for professional ambition and for success and be happy as a

00:00:45.280 clam.

00:00:45.900 It's a perfectly legitimate, fine, great choice that a woman can make. 0.76

00:00:51.420 In fact, it would seem that Mrs. Obama, who is married with two kids, you may remember,

00:00:56.160 thinks that this.

00:00:57.340 That path is actually preferable given the fact that she considers it a problem that

00:01:01.780 girls aspire to get married and have kids. 0.71

00:01:05.280 She wouldn't call it a problem if a young girl said she wanted to grow up to be an astronaut 1.00

00:01:09.560 or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

00:01:12.560 That wouldn't be a problem.

00:01:13.740 But if a girl says she wants to get married and have kids and that's what she's dreaming 1.00

00:01:16.460 of in Michelle Obama's mind and in the minds of a lot of feminists and a lot of people in 1.00

00:01:20.720 our culture, that is a problem.

00:01:23.100 It's an interesting thing because Americans are increasingly looking outside of the home

00:01:31.180 for happiness.

00:01:32.680 We have fled the home in search of happiness and in search of fulfillment.

00:01:38.620 And the people who have rejected family life for the sake of a job, they'll say, they'll claim that,

00:01:46.640 oh, yeah, I found it.

00:01:47.680 My life is wonderful.

00:01:48.860 I'm so happy.

00:01:49.360 In fact, Ross said she provided during this interview or whatever it was, she provided

00:01:56.780 some compelling evidence to prove that her decision to forgo family life for the sake

00:02:01.040 of a job was the right call.

00:02:02.540 She said she turned to the audience and she said, look where I'm sitting, right?

00:02:06.740 Because she's sitting.

00:02:07.420 She's on stage and she's sitting next to the former first lady, which that, of course, 0.64

00:02:11.580 is the peak and pinnacle of all happiness.

00:02:13.280 And so that proves that, look, my life is great, wonderful.

00:02:17.580 I'm a 45-year-old woman.

00:02:19.440 I have no kids.

00:02:20.620 I have no family.

00:02:21.620 But my life is so awesome.

00:02:24.980 And we're always told this.

00:02:26.780 The child-free people are always telling us how wonderful and great and just awesome and

00:02:33.340 exciting their life is, which is the first hint that their life is not so great.

00:02:37.580 Because when someone feels the need to constantly tell you their life is great and they're happy,

00:02:41.240 it means their life is not great and they are not happy.

00:02:44.160 And I am talking here specifically about the quote child-free.

00:02:47.540 That is people who, they don't say child-less, they say child-free because child-less makes

00:02:51.540 it sound like they're missing something.

00:02:52.900 Child-free makes it sound like a child is a disease that they're free from.

00:02:57.260 So I'm talking about the people who choose to forgo family, to forgo kids for the sake

00:03:02.960 of just a job and professional success.

00:03:05.700 That's what I'm talking about.

00:03:06.760 I'm addressing that because that is what Michelle Obama is pushing.

00:03:09.720 It's what a lot of people are pushing in our society.

00:03:11.840 I'm discussing that.

00:03:12.860 I'm not talking about people who are unable to conceive children or people who are never

00:03:18.780 able to get married even though they want to, or they choose not to get married for

00:03:21.660 the sake of some other vocation.

00:03:24.220 Not discussing that.

00:03:25.660 I'm specifically talking about the people who choose this life of self-centeredness.

00:03:33.180 Okay?

00:03:33.760 Just to clarify here.

00:03:35.040 So you know who I'm talking about.

00:03:36.660 And the people who make that choice, again, they're all, they're always insisting that

00:03:40.220 their life is so great.

00:03:41.020 And it's just, it's, it's so, it's so great in this.

00:03:43.100 It's just so straightforwardly great.

00:03:45.840 The way they present it is they never have any feelings of loneliness whatsoever.

00:03:51.120 None.

00:03:51.680 No, it's awesome.

00:03:53.140 Remember there's this, uh, you may remember the time magazine cover, a cover story on time

00:03:59.240 a few years ago, and, uh, it was about a cover about the child-free life.

00:04:05.680 And there was a picture of these two, uh, this married couple smiling on the beach, kicking

00:04:12.280 back, uh, in the sand.

00:04:14.740 And they were, you know, they were just so happy.

00:04:16.800 And then the headline there said, when having it all means not having kids.

00:04:21.860 And that's the way it's presented.

00:04:24.000 They have it all.

00:04:25.040 They've got everything.

00:04:26.480 And they're just happy laying on the beach.

00:04:29.060 And that is what the child-free life is.

00:04:31.080 It is just a life on the beach.

00:04:33.760 No sadness at all.

00:04:36.100 It's utopia.

00:04:38.280 And yet, when I look around society, I don't really see a lot of evidence of happiness.

00:04:45.780 In fact, what I see is a depressed, anxious, stressed out nation of addicts and narcissists

00:04:54.600 and people who are, who compulsively stare at their phones and, and watch TV.

00:05:01.400 Their entire life is lived on screens and they're popping antidepressants.

00:05:06.400 I mean, that's what I see when I look around.

00:05:08.200 I don't see this.

00:05:09.580 I don't see people who are living in bliss.

00:05:11.600 I hear sometimes people claim that they are and they present themselves as if they are

00:05:16.460 on Instagram or on Time Magazine covers, or when they're giving interviews or when they're

00:05:20.720 talking with a, with a, with, with a first lady on stage at a women's conference.

00:05:24.220 I can, I hear that.

00:05:25.780 But when I look around, I don't see any evidence of it.

00:05:28.600 I see a bunch of just zombies walking around who barely just confused and lost and feeling

00:05:35.580 hopeless.

00:05:36.340 That's what I see.

00:05:37.520 And that isn't to say that all unhappy people are childless.

00:05:41.600 It's a lot of unhappy people with children.

00:05:45.820 What I'm saying is that we have a very flawed idea about happiness and our concept of how

00:05:52.280 you attain happiness, which is in our minds, you attain it selfishly through self-centered

00:05:58.340 pursuits, through pursuing things for your own sake.

00:06:01.560 That clearly has not worked out.

00:06:04.460 As much as we claim that it has worked out, it hasn't.

00:06:07.620 We are more depressed and anxious now than we've ever been in history.

00:06:11.960 We're probably the most depressed, anxious country in the history of the world.

00:06:15.960 And so obviously we're not going about things in the right way.

00:06:20.200 There's con, which is with everything about our modern attitudes and our modern philosophies,

00:06:24.560 there's constantly this disconnect between what is claimed and what is actually happening.

00:06:31.680 We're told that, okay, we adopt this philosophy, this way of life, and then X, Y, Z will happen.

00:06:37.820 But then I look around and X, Y, Z is not happening.

00:06:41.000 The exact opposite is happening.

00:06:43.120 Now, there are some studies that will insist that people without kids are, in fact, much

00:06:50.420 happier than people with kids.

00:06:51.720 Because if you Google it right now, and I'm sure there are people furiously Googling it

00:06:55.780 so they can disprove me with science, and they can leave a comment saying, no, Matt, scientifically,

00:07:00.760 you're wrong, okay?

00:07:01.560 Because science has measured human happiness and fulfillment.

00:07:05.160 And you see, it's been tabulated here on this bar graph, and obviously, clearly, you're wrong.

00:07:09.400 And if you Google it, you will find, you'll see a headline saying that people without kids

00:07:14.380 are way happier, way happier than people with kids.

00:07:18.460 There's a problem with these kinds of studies.

00:07:20.420 Number one, they assume an honest self-assessment.

00:07:25.980 The only way to measure someone's happiness is just to ask them, are you happy with your life choices?

00:07:31.200 Are you happy with the path you've taken?

00:07:32.760 Has it worked out for you?

00:07:33.820 Do you feel fulfilled?

00:07:35.000 All you can do is ask them.

00:07:36.580 And it would require people who have sacrificed family for a career, it would require them to

00:07:41.100 look honestly at their lives and at themselves and to assess it.

00:07:46.020 But most people don't have the courage for that.

00:07:48.020 So instead, they'll just say, oh, yeah, sure, I'm so happy.

00:07:51.020 But they're not trying to convince us.

00:07:52.620 They're trying to convince themselves primarily.

00:07:54.940 The second problem is that a study, you know, these kinds of studies, they, in surveys,

00:07:58.360 they assume that people have a correct understanding of happiness, which most people don't.

00:08:05.020 Most people don't know what happiness is.

00:08:06.580 So they don't know how to find it.

00:08:08.500 And they don't even, they're unhappy, but they don't even know that they are unhappy because

00:08:13.300 they don't, they, they, they don't understand what happiness is.

00:08:15.940 In other words, they don't know what they're missing.

00:08:18.720 They don't know what they could have and what sort of happiness and joy they could actually

00:08:22.980 attain because all they've ever gone for is just this shallow, selfish, immediate kind

00:08:31.720 of pleasure and indulgence.

00:08:33.780 That's all they've ever gone for.

00:08:34.940 It's all they've ever had.

00:08:35.640 So they say, oh, yeah, well, I guess that's happiness.

00:08:38.300 It's not.

00:08:39.800 It would be like if you, if you wanted to find out whether or not, whether people who exercise

00:08:45.360 are happier or less happy than people who don't exercise.

00:08:49.400 And so you go to a guy on a treadmill who's on like mile three of the treadmill and he's

00:08:55.600 sweating and he's just, he's, he's exhausted.

00:08:58.680 And you go up and you ask him in the moment, hey, are you happy right now?

00:09:04.300 And the guy is uncomfortable and he's in pain and he wants to get off the treadmill, but

00:09:07.940 he told himself he'd do five miles.

00:09:09.700 So right now in this moment, he's probably not, he would not self-identify as happy.

00:09:16.100 And then let's say then you, you, you go and you, you find a guy who's sitting on a couch

00:09:20.780 eating Cheetos and he's on hour five of a Netflix binge.

00:09:24.020 And you ask him, are you happy right now? 0.97

00:09:26.220 And probably as he's relaxing on the couch and just sitting there on his butt, he'll 0.90

00:09:30.420 probably say, oh yeah, I'm so happy. 0.85

00:09:32.940 I'm just, I'm relaxing.

00:09:34.340 It's great.

00:09:35.060 I'm happy.

00:09:36.060 Does that actually prove which path brings greater happiness?

00:09:41.180 Or does that prove that the guy on the couch is diluted and numb and the guy on the treadmill

00:09:47.660 is working for something greater and bigger than what the guy on the couch is working for?

00:09:54.700 So maybe if you're doing your survey, you should wait a couple hours, wait till the guy's off

00:10:01.440 the treadmill after a day spent eating healthy and getting exercise after an active full day,

00:10:09.200 ask him then, and then ask the guy who spent all day watching TV as he's finally fading off to bed

00:10:16.180 with his brain half melted, ask him, ask them then how happy they are better yet.

00:10:21.300 Come back in a few years, come back in a few years.

00:10:24.120 When the guy on the treadmill has been working out and exercising and, and being, being healthy

00:10:28.400 this whole time.

00:10:29.100 And now he's older, but he's in great physical shape and he doesn't have a lot of the health

00:10:33.860 problems that people his age have.

00:10:35.420 And then go to the guy who's been sitting on the couch the whole time and he's overweight,

00:10:38.420 he's fat, he's got diabetes.

00:10:40.160 Let's do a comparison then to find out who's happier, who chose the better path.

00:10:46.460 Likewise, I'd be interested to see a follow-up study with one of these happy people, one of

00:10:52.440 these happy child-free people.

00:10:54.320 I'd be interested to see a follow-up study of a couple of decades from now.

00:10:58.740 Take some woman who chose profession, career success over family, over kids. 1.00

00:11:06.120 Yeah.

00:11:06.300 Right now when she's relaxing and she's getting ready for, ready for her third vacation of the

00:11:11.320 year.

00:11:11.660 Yeah.

00:11:12.020 Maybe she'll, she'll say, oh, I'm so happy.

00:11:14.700 Check back in a couple of decades when she's alone.

00:11:18.680 Maybe she was married before, but people who marry and choose not to have kids, their likelihood

00:11:24.060 of divorce is much, much higher than people who do have kids.

00:11:27.220 So she's probably divorced by now. 0.97

00:11:28.980 And she's 55, 60 years old.

00:11:32.320 She's on the tail end of her career. 1.00

00:11:35.140 A lot of her high-flying ambitions have long since given way to reality.

00:11:40.040 She's being replaced by younger, more skilled people.

00:11:44.320 And she comes home every day to her great, wonderful, nice house that the housekeeper 0.98

00:11:50.960 has kept in great shape.

00:11:52.260 And she's got all this nice stuff, all this nice, wonderful stuff, but nobody there to

00:11:56.920 use it.

00:11:57.720 And she's got all this space, but nobody to fill it with.

00:12:01.100 And all these rooms, but no one to sleep in.

00:12:04.140 And she could take any vacation she wants, but she's been on all the exotic vacations.

00:12:08.320 They've lost their novelty by now.

00:12:09.900 And also, frankly, it's kind of depressing to go on vacation by yourself.

00:12:14.540 And most of the people at work are much younger than her, but the people that she knows, her

00:12:18.660 friends who are her age, most of them are, they're planning weddings for their grown children.

00:12:23.060 They're going to baptisms for their grandchildren.

00:12:25.560 They're planning family reunions.

00:12:27.460 They have all these landmarks coming up.

00:12:29.440 They've got the grandchildren coming over on the weekend.

00:12:32.760 They're going to go over a picnic.

00:12:33.780 They're going to go down to the lake.

00:12:34.920 They've got this whole thing planned.

00:12:36.760 And her, all she's got is herself. 0.53

00:12:39.900 Her loneliness, her success.

00:12:42.660 Ask her then how happy she is.

00:12:44.560 And then maybe come back a couple decades from then, when she's elderly, and she's in a nursing

00:12:50.700 home, and there's nobody there to care for her, because she never had any kids, and so 0.75

00:12:55.380 she's alone.

00:12:56.700 And then come back when she's on her deathbed, and she's dying alone with nobody there to

00:13:01.640 mourn her, because she has no family.

00:13:04.740 Ask her then how happy she is.

00:13:06.060 She's leaving no legacy behind, except for the work she did at some job, some job that's

00:13:12.200 long since forgotten her.

00:13:14.280 Even if she had success, she worked for a great big company, and she became a manager, and

00:13:19.480 she managed people.

00:13:20.660 She had an office. 0.90

00:13:22.020 She had everything.

00:13:23.040 I mean, she had an office. 0.99

00:13:25.360 Wow.

00:13:25.760 But that's not a legacy.

00:13:29.000 Because she left that job, and she was immediately replaced by someone else, and the work she 0.70

00:13:34.180 did just didn't matter that much.

00:13:36.880 That's the thing about a job, about being an employee.

00:13:39.880 That's why it's so ridiculous for us to worship it as some great achievement.

00:13:45.100 You work at a job, you can be replaced in an instant, like that.

00:13:50.940 Whatever your job is, that's what I hate to tell you this, and it's true for me, too.

00:13:54.720 Whatever your job is, you can be replaced like that, and nobody will even notice.

00:14:02.580 Maybe they'll give you a...

00:14:03.640 Maybe if you retire, they'll throw a nice party for you.

00:14:06.560 If you get fired when you're walking out the door holding your box of stuff, maybe they'll

00:14:11.140 say, oh, so we'll miss you.

00:14:12.560 I'm so sorry to see you leave.

00:14:13.640 But they won't miss you.

00:14:15.040 By tomorrow, they'll have forgotten about you, and things will just continue along without

00:14:18.400 you.

00:14:19.900 It's different when you have a family.

00:14:22.160 You've got kids, when you have a spouse you love, you've got grandchildren, you've got a

00:14:25.660 whole family, you're not replaceable.

00:14:28.800 When you leave, they mourn you.

00:14:30.360 Something real is missing.

00:14:32.240 When you leave a job, nothing real is missing.

00:14:34.740 There's no legacy there.

00:14:36.120 It doesn't matter.

00:14:37.860 So ask her then how happy she is.

00:14:39.120 Has anyone in the history of mankind, has any dying person in the history of mankind ever

00:14:45.080 lay on their deathbed and said to themselves, I am so happy that I sacrificed family for material

00:14:56.680 possessions?

00:14:57.240 Has any dying person ever in history felt that way?

00:15:04.080 Of course, there are many people who do have kids and yet follow a similar trajectory to the

00:15:08.220 one I've just described.

00:15:09.680 There are many people who have families and yet still sacrifice their families for the sake of

00:15:16.980 professional ambition and success.

00:15:19.360 And they're also going to end up alone and miserable because their kids were raised by TVs and by

00:15:28.300 babysitters.

00:15:29.640 Because both parents were out working 10 hours a day to just amass all of this wealth and all of

00:15:35.480 these possessions and all of this success and they feel like it's okay and their kids aren't missing

00:15:42.380 anything because at least they can go on a nice vacation to Disney World once a year and they can buy

00:15:46.320 them a lot of nice toys for Christmas and birthdays.

00:15:50.300 But in the end, their kids are being neglected and they're missing the one thing they really need,

00:15:54.400 which is a family, which is parents who are there for them.

00:15:58.220 Now, I'm not saying there are people who fall on tough financial times and so both parents

00:16:07.520 really have to work for the sake of in order to make ends meet and they're just struggling and

00:16:14.420 doing what they can.

00:16:15.200 There are a lot of people in that position.

00:16:17.800 And on some level, the kids will, you know, maybe not now, but at some age when the kids get older,

00:16:24.360 they're going to look at that.

00:16:25.100 They're going to look at what their parents had to do, struggling and fighting, and they're going

00:16:28.900 to respect that.

00:16:29.520 They're going to know that they were not neglected.

00:16:31.820 What I'm talking about, which is very common, especially in upper middle class America,

00:16:35.640 I'm talking about families that are well off and plenty of money.

00:16:40.240 You know, the dad on his own is making plenty of money to care for the family.

00:16:44.100 But still, both parents just go out and their primary concern is their careers.

00:16:52.640 That's the case in a lot of families.

00:16:56.680 For the parents, that's the main thing they're worried about.

00:17:01.200 Those are their priorities.

00:17:03.540 And the problem is that the kids, as they get older, are going to realize that. 1.00

00:17:07.760 And they're going to see that they play second fiddle to the stupid jobs that their parents 1.00

00:17:12.080 have. 1.00

00:17:13.360 And their kids are going to grow to resent them.

00:17:15.060 And as those parents get older, and probably they're going to end up divorced too, because

00:17:19.060 their priorities are out of whack, and they care more about their jobs than they do about

00:17:23.680 their families, which leads to divorce.

00:17:26.660 It also leads to affairs and all kinds of things.

00:17:28.700 So most likely, that marriage isn't going to last.

00:17:32.260 And both those parents are going to end up alone as well.

00:17:34.760 And as they get older, and they look back, and they see all that time that was wasted,

00:17:38.680 and they see that now their kids are older now and don't need them anymore, and they

00:17:43.920 look back and realize that, man, all this time, I could have been spending time with

00:17:47.080 my family, taking them fishing, building tree houses, doing all this stuff with them, reading

00:17:51.200 them books, making memories.

00:17:53.600 I didn't do any of that.

00:17:55.400 And now they're going to want to try to forge a relationship and all of a sudden now become

00:18:00.340 real parents to their kids.

00:18:01.940 But their kids are going to look at them and say, it's too late for that.

00:18:05.940 We don't have any connection.

00:18:07.340 There's no bond.

00:18:08.040 There never will be.

00:18:08.980 You had a chance to build it, and you never did.

00:18:11.140 You had a chance to be a parent, and you never did.

00:18:13.380 And now you want to be a friend.

00:18:14.400 It's not going to work that way.

00:18:16.540 And so they're going to be alone.

00:18:19.140 And they're essentially going to die alone too.

00:18:22.860 And the words that are said about them at their eulogies by their kids will be perfunctory

00:18:27.420 and half-hearted as their kids struggle to conjure up any warm memories to mention in tribute

00:18:36.640 to them.

00:18:38.040 There are a lot of people in America who are on this path of just loneliness and disappointment

00:18:44.140 because a lot of people have been made to believe that professional achievement is the

00:18:49.820 highest goal in life.

00:18:51.580 It's the whole point of life to achieve professionally, to have success.

00:18:56.640 That's what we think is the point.

00:19:00.020 But it's not.

00:19:01.740 The way that we find, you know, if you really want to find happiness and fulfillment and meaning

00:19:09.880 in life, you don't find it through a job. 0.86

00:19:12.780 You find, and I know this sounds corny, but it only sounds corny to us because we're silly 0.99

00:19:18.040 and selfish people. 0.90

00:19:19.000 You find purpose, joy, and meaning in service to others, service to God first and then to

00:19:25.360 your family.

00:19:26.100 And then after that to neighbors and communities in that order.

00:19:30.080 Everyone in the world is called to dedicate their lives to service.

00:19:34.280 Everyone is called to that.

00:19:36.320 And only those who heed that calling will find any meaning, any purpose, any real joy in their

00:19:43.420 lives.

00:19:44.420 And it is quite possible that you have people who are called to serve in another capacity.

00:19:49.480 There are people who never get married.

00:19:51.120 And so they, you know, they enter into a different vocation and they serve in a different way.

00:19:56.380 They feel called to serve differently and they enter into the religious life to become missionaries.

00:20:00.960 I mean, whatever they, they, but they serve through some other way.

00:20:04.160 There are people in that, and that's a beautiful, wonderful thing.

00:20:07.000 And, and those people will find meaning and joy and purpose in their lives.

00:20:10.200 And they're going to leave behind a legacy.

00:20:12.500 And then there are married couples who can't have kids.

00:20:14.680 And so they become parents some other way, maybe through adoption, which is, which is wonderful.

00:20:19.900 I also, I met a married couple once who discovered that they couldn't conceive children.

00:20:25.040 And so they went overseas and became missionaries and became kind of spiritual parents to a whole host of people.

00:20:33.180 And they also are leaving a legacy.

00:20:35.060 They're finding meaning and joy and purpose in their lives.

00:20:37.260 And that's a great thing.

00:20:39.120 It is possible to have a family and not to serve it, just as it is possible to not have a family and yet to serve.

00:20:47.760 Nobody's suggesting otherwise.

00:20:49.400 I'm certainly not.

00:20:50.980 What I am suggesting is twofold.

00:20:53.100 Number one, most people are called to have families.

00:20:58.060 And so it is objectively a bad thing that we treat family life as kind of this afterthought.

00:21:05.760 And the average age of first marriage for men now is like 30.

00:21:10.160 And the average age of having a kid is going, is being pushed back further and further.

00:21:14.660 And it would be one thing if a few people, if some people took that path and waited longer.

00:21:19.020 But when you get to the point where everybody is putting it off and waiting to start families until they're out of their young adulthood and out of their 20s, that means that our priorities as a society, our priorities have just been flipped upside down.

00:21:32.680 Everything's been turned upside down because we're putting professional achievement and financial security ahead of family.

00:21:40.120 So that's what I'm saying.

00:21:41.440 I'm also saying nobody is called to just have a career and to have that be their life.

00:21:50.600 Because if you have no family or if you're married, but you both work and you have no kids, then your career is just about you.

00:21:56.940 It's just about sustaining you.

00:21:58.140 It's about money for you.

00:21:59.000 It's about achievements for you.

00:22:00.100 It's about success for you.

00:22:02.320 That's what it's about.

00:22:03.600 And you might say, well, I help people in my career.

00:22:05.780 I provide a product or a service or whatever.

00:22:08.880 Great.

00:22:09.380 I mean, really great.

00:22:10.420 That's awesome.

00:22:11.300 But when you go work a job, the primary point is the money.

00:22:15.900 You wouldn't do it for free, right?

00:22:17.980 If you're doing something, if your career is something you do for free to help others, well, that's different.

00:22:22.820 That's a ministry.

00:22:25.160 But most people, their career is primarily they do it to make money for themselves.

00:22:31.760 They have a family.

00:22:32.680 They do it for their family.

00:22:33.480 But if there's no family, they're just doing it for themselves.

00:22:35.780 And that's not a life.

00:22:37.340 That's not a life of meaning and purpose.

00:22:40.960 That's just a life about you.

00:22:43.440 And the average American who says, I'm putting off family for career or I'm not having a family because I'm focusing on my career.

00:22:51.000 The average person who says that it's not because they want to help people, despite what they might say.

00:22:56.980 They're not going to help people.

00:22:58.320 It's because they want money for themselves and they want stuff for themselves.

00:23:01.220 They want nice vacations and they want to avoid the hassle and the hardship that comes with having kids.

00:23:07.780 Because we've decided, you know, what we think is that finding happiness, you find happiness through avoiding suffering and avoiding hardship and avoiding sacrifice.

00:23:19.560 And we don't realize that that's not where you find happiness.

00:23:22.920 You find happiness through hardship, overcoming it in the midst of it.

00:23:28.360 That's where you find happiness.

00:23:30.220 So if you spend your whole life trying to go around hardship and sacrifice, you're going to miss it because it's right there in the middle.

00:23:38.600 You've got to plunge in and find it.

00:23:40.720 So that's where you find happiness.

00:23:44.360 And look, if you don't have kids, if you don't have a family, then there are things you can do that those of us with kids can't do as much.

00:23:53.280 You can go on nice vacations and everything.

00:23:55.660 But even that, even that is empty and meaningless if that's all your life is.

00:24:00.560 You know, I have the opportunity as part of my job to travel all across the country when I'm doing speaking gigs.

00:24:07.040 And I see lots of different sites and it's great.

00:24:11.480 But when I go and I'm by myself and I'm in some new location, seeing some beautiful view or making some great memory, you know, it's the first thing I always think to myself is, man, I wish my wife was here.

00:24:25.380 Man, I wish my kids were here to see this and to share this memory.

00:24:28.760 I can appreciate the thing on my own and I do, but how much greater would it be if I could share it with the people that I love?

00:24:41.140 How much greater is the happiness when you share it?

00:24:45.460 How much greater is happiness when it's not just about you?

00:24:48.280 There's a reason why a lot of people who, in our society, who have families and have kids will still report that they're miserable and it's awful and they'll complain about it. 0.77

00:25:00.900 Because even though they have families, they're still selfish people and they're shallow and they're cowardly, really.

00:25:07.940 So they're not able to find a happiness that isn't about them.

00:25:12.240 But the real happiness in family life, and it is a real happiness, you find that when you're not looking for it, when it's not about you.

00:25:20.480 You find it in the moments that are not centered around you.

00:25:25.120 You find it in the moments that you give to your family and to your spouse.

00:25:29.200 That's where you find that real, true happiness.

00:25:32.040 But if you never give yourself to them, you never give them any time.

00:25:35.700 If you never sacrifice anything for them, then you're never going to find the happiness in family life.

00:25:42.400 You're going to miss it.

00:25:43.720 There's a movie called Into the Wild about Christopher McCandless, a true story.

00:25:50.420 And he was the guy, he left society behind.

00:25:52.760 He burned his driver's license, his credit cards.

00:25:55.440 He walked across the country on foot, ultimately into the Alaskan wilderness by himself.

00:26:02.360 And when he made it there to this beautiful place, he accidentally ate poison berries, and he ultimately died alone out in the woods.

00:26:14.800 And as he was dying, he scrawled a message for whoever would find his body.

00:26:20.160 And the message said, happiness is only real when shared.

00:26:24.860 And that is a profound truth.

00:26:26.920 If your whole life is about making yourself happy, you will never be happy.

00:26:32.360 Not a real happiness.

00:26:34.800 The real happiness is that which is shared.

00:26:38.120 The happiness you find in family life is complicated, difficult, challenging, even painful, but it's real.

00:26:45.000 It's real, and it's worth it.

00:26:47.380 And I really pity those who forego it for the sake of mere selfishness.

00:26:52.920 And I even more pity those who have the opportunity to experience that happiness because they have families,

00:26:58.560 yet they miss it because they can't stop looking in the mirror.

00:27:03.260 What a waste.

00:27:04.340 I mean, what an utter, total waste.

00:27:07.600 Thanks for listening, everybody.

00:27:08.720 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 08, 2018

Ep. 25 - Your Career Won't Make You Happy

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