How to Deal with Change, Mistakes, and Things That Just Can’t Be Straightened Out

Have you ever wondered what do you do with past mistakes that you make in your life? All of us have made them. All of us have them. And from time to time they drift through our memory. And we wonder, what should I do about that situation?

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and. And fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome. Today we're going to be talking about how do you deal with change? How do you deal with mistakes in your life? How do you straighten out things that really can't be straightened out? Well, I've come to realize there's always one of three things you can do with everything that's happened in your past. I'm going to share these three things with you today. And I promise you, if you listen, maybe take notes, maybe, maybe figure out if there's something that's haunting you, if there's something that maybe is in your mind that crosses through your thought process every once in a while and you wonder, oh, I wish I could do that over again. Or I'm so sorry that that happened. I didn't know better. I was too young. I made a mistake. All of us have been down that road. All of us have made mistakes. All of us have had challenges in our life that as we were growing up, we were just maybe too inexperienced or too ignorant or too unwise to do something correct or right. So what do you do with all that? Well, I'm going to share with you right now. There's one of three things you can do with every mistake, every challenge, every disappointment, everything that's happened in your life. Here we go. First, you can regret it. Here's what regret feels like and sounds like. Oh, I wish I hadn't done that. Oh, I. That was a big mistake. I can't believe I was that stupid. I can't believe I was taken advantage of. I just am so sorry that I made that mistake. I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I did that to another person. I just didn't know. I was so young, I was so inexperienced. I didn't know what I was doing at the time. But I can't wind the clock back and do it over again. But it's still there. It still haunts me. I still think about it. Oh, true, maybe people have moved on. Maybe there are some people involved in that now they've passed away. But you still think about it every now and then. And you live with this constant nagging, guilty feeling of regret. I regret what happened to me. That's a hard way to live. And we've all done it. We all have thought, I wish I had known better. If I were to ask everyone today, raise your hand if anything ever happened in your life and if you could go back and do it all over again, how many of you would be willing? My hands already going up, and I know yours is too, because sometimes we make mistakes. True, some of them are less serious than others. Some of them are very serious. And we just have to live with regret all of our life. But there really is a better way, and I'm going to share that with you. So to start with, many of us, and we've all experienced that aspect of life we call regret. But remember, regret is always on yourself. I should have seen that coming. I should have known better. I shouldn't have done that. I should have. I, I. And you live with this feeling of guilt and this feeling of sorrow and sadness inside over a huge mistake that you made. And you can't blame anybody but yourself. So that's your first choice, your second choice. If you don't live with regret, many people live with resentment. You resent what happens. But remember, if you resent something that happens, that's on another person. I resent the way you talk to me. I resent the way you treated me. I resent what you did to me. You lied to me. You deceived me. You. You. You notice the difference in our pronouns now? It's you did something to me and I resent it. I was taken advantage of by someone and you knew about it. You let that happen. You didn't do anything to protect me. You didn't do anything to watch over me. You knew what was going on and you didn't say anything. But again, that is a very, very difficult place to be to live in resentment. Somebody did you wrong. Somebody said something to you that hurt your feelings. Somebody deliberately or innocently misled you, and you got involved in something that now, being older and wiser, you realize, I shouldn't have done that. But it wasn't my fault. I was tricked. I was deceived. So you see, there's a difference between the first two positions. The first one is you regret it because it pretty much was your fault. But the second one is you resent it because it was pretty much someone else's fault. Maybe your parents didn't raise you right. And, and that's understandable. I'm reminded of the Story of the two, and I'm sure you've heard this of the two young men, One of them was in prison, and he was being visited by someone. And his friend said, how did you end up in prison? He said, are you kidding me? The dad I had, he never supported us, he beat us. He was an alcoholic. He was vicious. He was. He. He was terrible. And what do you mean, how did I end up in prison? I didn't have any other choice. This is the only place I could have ended up with a dad like mine. And that same individual went and visited his brother. And he said, I just visited your brother who's in prison. He said, and I noticed you're a medical doctor. How did you become a medical doctor? He said, are you kidding me? With a dad like ours? He said, I saw how terrible he was. He beat us. He was an alcoholic, he was abusive. He said, he was just terrible. I looked at him and thought, I don't want to be like that. So I studied hard in school, I worked hard, I was able to get scholarships, and I eventually became a medical doctor. Now my life is great, and I have a thriving practice, and I really owe it all to my dad. You asked me how I ended up like this with a father like mine. I couldn't have ended up any other way. Isn't that a great story? I've heard that story many times, and I always think, isn't that something? And I don't know these two individuals personally, but I'm sure situations like that have happened, because I do know people that grew up in the same household with the same mom and dad. And some of them turned out great, and some of them turned out not so great. And I know you have stories like that, too. I wonder if it goes back to the fact resentment creates anger and bitterness and hatefulness. Think about a person who lives with resentment, a person. I believe a person who lives with resentment and anger and bitterness lives with a sentence worse than death because it never dies. They wake up being angry and bitter. Someone once said, being angry and bitter is like you drinking poison and expecting another person to die. If you drink the poison, my friend, you're going to be the one to suffer for it. And when you live with resentment, and we've all done it, a girlfriend broke up with us, a boyfriend jilted us. Something happened in our life. I didn't see that coming. Somebody stole my laptop. Somebody stole my phone. Somebody stole my computer. Listen carefully. I'm not saying any of those things are right. As a matter of fact, I'll go on record saying they're wrong, they're hurtful, nobody should steal your stuff. But the truth of the matter is you got to get over it. And how do you get over it? Well, it's not by being resentful. Well, I resent what they said about me. I resent what they did to me. I resent the fact that it happened to me. But again, remember, resentment is where you'll always be pointing your finger at someone else, being angry, bitter, upset because of the way they treated you or what they said about you. So if the first two don't work and keep listening because you're going to love where this is going because I do have the solution. The first one doesn't work because we regret it and that's on us. The second one doesn't work because that's when we resent someone or something, but that's on another person. We resent what they said to us and we are angry and bitter. But neither one of those first of all, work and neither one of them second of all is good for your health. It is not good for your health to live in in guilt and depression and defeated, a defeated attitude. Neither is it good for you to live in bitterness and anger and in resentment towards other people. Well, what's the solution? Now hear me well. I'm going to give it to you in just a second. But before I do, let me say one last thing. Lest you think I'm being too light hearted. I am sorry about what happened to you in your life. My heart goes out to you as it does to anyone who's had a challenge. You do not deserve to be abused. You do not deserve to be lied to or tricked. You do not deserve to have made mistakes when you were younger, when you weren't educated enough or you didn't have the right friends or you didn't have the right information. I am sorry that you have things in your life that happened to you that you regret. I am so sorry that things happen to you in your life that you resent. But friend, let me be honest with you and lovingly and gently and kindly say, please don't stay stuck. Please don't stay stuck in regretting what happened and resenting what happened. Because there is a third alternative and the third alternative, and I'm going to share a great story with you, the third alternative is you can reframe what happened to you. You can look at it in a different light. After all, are you wiser today because of what happened to You. Of course you are. Do you have more insight today than you once have? Yes. You do. I love the story of Joseph. It's one of the greatest stories. You can read it in the last chapters in the book of Genesis. It's found in chapter 37 through the end of the book of Genesis. There's about 13 chapters there that give the whole story of the life of Joseph. When Joseph was 17 years old, he had a dream. He had 10 older brothers. And the next day, he saw his 10 older brothers. And he was only 17 years old. He was young. He was. He was inexperienced. He was excited. He told his brothers, I had a dream last night that all of you bowed down to me. Oh, you did, huh? You. You dreamed that all of us bow down with you. Well, we all bow down in front of you like you're some kind of emperor or king or something. That's wonderful, Joseph. We are so happy about your dream. Then they started plotting how they could kill him. And some of the brothers said, wait a minute. We can't kill him. He's our brother. Finally, one of them said, well, let's at least make some money on this deal. And they sold him as a slave to a band of Midianites who were traveling in a caravan of camels on their way to Midian. They sold him as a slave. And then they took his coat and they dipped it in blood. And they went and showed their father. And they said, father, Joseph no doubt has been killed by a wild animal. We found his coat, and the father wept. Well, years and years passed. What happened to Joseph? He was put in prison. First he was sold as a slave to the Midianites, and then he was put in prison. While he was in prison, they auctioned off slaves. I think slavery is wrong. I know slavery is wrong. Joseph was a slave. He was sold to a man named Potiphar. Potiphar had a house. He had slaves himself. He had wives. He had a wife. He had a territory that he oversaw. He was a very influential person. He bought Joseph to be his slave. Joseph worked hard. He had a good attitude. He continued to listen carefully. I know what he was thinking. He continued to reframe what had happened to him. He didn't resent his brothers. He didn't regret the fact that because there's nothing he could do about it, he just kept thinking this way. Something good is going to come about. It may take some time. I am going to look for something good. I'm going to reframe this. The story is not over yet. Then time passed. Potiphar's wife started hitting on Joseph. He was a young, good looking man and she came on to him and Joseph said, no, no, I can't do this. How could I do this? You're married. Your husband, trust me, to everything in this house. He's not kept anything from me except you. You're his wife. I can't do this. Joseph even made this statement. He said, how can I do this and sin against God? So there we have it, a little glimpse. Joseph knew God said, work. I'm not going to be resentful. I'm not going to regret this. I'm going to reframe it. God's doing something. I don't know what it is, but I'm willing to give. And here's the punchline. I'm willing to give God some time to see how all this is going to play out. Time passed. Joseph was now put into prison because Potiphar's wife had falsely accused him. He was there for years and years after. He had been in prison for many years. He found out one day that the chief butler and the chief baker from Pharaoh got put into prison too. One night, both of these men, the butler and the baker, had dreams. And the butler had a dream that there were three vines flourishing from this vine that was growing and they had three different shoots on it and they were loaded with grapes. And the baker dreamed that he had three big baskets of bread on his head and the birds came and ate the bread. Well, the next day they were talking about their dreams and what could they possibly mean? And Joseph said, I can interpret your dreams. And he explained to the butler, your dream means in three days you're going to go back and be serving the king his wine again. And. And when the baker said, well, that's a good dream, what about mine? Joseph said, not so good. In three days he's going to hang you and the birds will come and eat from your head. And sure enough, in three days the baker was executed and the butler was restored to his rightful place. Well, two more years passed and then Pharaoh had a dream. And Pharaoh dreamed that there were seven fat cows and seven skinny cows. And the seven skinny cows ate the fat cows and the seven skinny ears of corn ate the seven fat ears of corn. And they were all trying to interpret the dream. And the butler said, oh my goodness, I remember something. There's someone in prison who can interpret your dreams. And they brought Joseph. And Joseph came and he interpreted to Pharaoh, there will be seven years of plenty. And then There'll be seven years of famine. That's why it's the same dream. It was given to you twice. And Pharaoh said, who could I find to oversee such a food distribution program? And Joseph said, you better find somebody you can trust, because this is going to be a hard job. And Pharaoh said, who could I trust more than you? And he made him the vice pharaoh of Egypt. And then there were seven years of plenty. Then two years into the famine, Joseph looked up and there were all of his brothers bowing down before him. 22 years had passed, and Joseph saw what he had seen in his dream 22 years earlier. And he brought them up. He said, come to me. I'm your brother, Joseph. He forgave them, and they were so afraid of him. They said, our father wants to be sure that you wouldn't do anything to hurt us. And Joseph said, wait a minute. It's one of the greatest truths you'll ever learn. Joseph said, I know what you did to me. You meant for evil. But I knew God would work it all out for good. And he sent me ahead of you to save your lives. Come to me. I'm Joseph, your brother. Now, you see, that is a great story, but it took 22 years for it to unfold. And I have to ask myself a question. Am I willing to give a situation 22 years before I'm willing to say, you know what? It all worked out? I have had situations that have taken decades in my life before I found out, oh, now I see what's actually taking place. The first two are really hard to live with. You can live with regret, or you can live with being resentful. You can resent things, or you can choose to live by reframing things. I have learned that when I reframe things and give it time to work out and find out more details, everything in my life goes better. And I promise you, it will for you as well. Remember, I believe the secret to life is learn to reframe things. Give them time to show you some meaning and some purpose behind what you've gone through. You will be the winner for it. If you're willing to give yourself a little bit of time and let things reframe to show you what life was trying to teach you. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I hope this has been helpful. I look forward to our next time together. For more information about this episode, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.