The Most Difficult Decision: Changing Your Direction in Life

Have you ever had certain friends and they just pulled you down? Have you ever had certain friends and no matter what happened, you ended up getting in trouble? Have you ever had some friends that, as you think about it, they're not just very good for the success of your life? Well, I have, and I'm going to share with you today what I did to change all that.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Romeo, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm. Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm, and today I want to be talking to you about the most difficult situation that ever happened in my whole life. Today I'm going to share with you what very well may be the hardest decision you may ever make. It is a barn burner of a decision. As I was growing up, I was pretty popular. I played sports, I had a car that was pretty nice. I had a lot of friends that we all hung out together. We went to the movies together and ball games and all those things that most people do when they're growing up. But it just seemed like I had a few friends that could talk me into anything. I mean, if they wanted to do something. And I thought, oh, oh, oh, you shouldn't do that. Well, I want my friends to like me, so I would go ahead and do it. I'll never forget now, this is a bad story. So hang on, parents, if your kids are listening, I think it'll turn out good. So let them listen. Anyway, when I was in high school, I had a friend named Bobby. And Bobby went around to. It was the end of our senior year and. And Bobby went around taking an order for bottles of liquor that he was going to go to Atlanta, Georgia and buy for everybody. And so, I mean, he said, you can get a bottle of vodka or bottle of gin or a bottle of rum or all these different. And he had a notepad. I'll never forget it. I was in the gym working out. And he said, hey, I've got this list. I'm going to Atlanta and I'm going to buy a lot of alcohol for everybody. We're going to celebrate as we graduate together. And he said, what do you want? And I just got to tell you, there was something inside of me that said, you don't want to do that. There's a little voice that if you'll be quiet, you'll hear it. It sounds like this. You'll be sorry.

Well, I heard that Voice that day. I wish I had had enough courage, enough intestinal fortitude to say, bobby, this is a bad idea. But the only thing I could come up with was, Bobby, I don't have any money. I am broke. Sorry, I'm going to have to pass.

And I didn't buy anything, and I didn't give him any money. Well, you know, when you're 17 or 18 years old, you're not the smartest person in the world. So Bobby goes to Atlanta, and he has a sheet of notebook paper with about 25 names on it and all of the money that he had collected. And where do you think he distributed the alcohol? Where do you think? Would you. Do you think it was in the woods? Do you think it was in a dark alley? No, it was in the school parking lot. Okay. One afternoon, he pulls up. How can you be this dumb? He pulls in the school parking lot. I can't make this stuff up. He pulls in the school parking lot, and everybody's in the back of his car getting there. Bottle of gin or vodka or rum or whatever it was that they were buying. Well, you kind of caused a little commotion because everybody's like, hey, hey, hey, that's my bottle. That's my. Well, the school principal noticed something was going on in the parking lot, and he walked out there. You'll never guess what he confiscated. Of course, everybody scattered like, you know, roaches. When they turned on the light, everybody took off. But Mr. Christie, who was the principal of the school, got the piece of paper from Bobby. In other words, he got the list of everybody's name and what they bought. There were school teachers, kids on that list. There were popular people who were on that list. It was the last week of school. I mean, there was suspensions. There were. Or.

There were a lot of bad things that happened. So are you ready for this? Here's the highlight of the story. All of the parents were called. Mr. Christie called all of the parents and told them what had happened. Your son, back in those days, it was. Fortunately, all the girls were left out of that fiasco. But all of the guys got in trouble. They all had some bad things occur to them. One. One guy I remember in particular, he wasn't even allowed to graduate. He got his diploma, but he wasn't allowed to come to the graduation ceremony. All right, so you ready? Here's the icing on the cake. My mother, of course, heard about this from all of her other friends. And my mother said to me, robert, did you. Did you buy any of that alcohol from Bob, did you give Bobby any money? I looked at my mother. I said, no, mother. I was not involved in that. I didn't give Bobby any money, and my name's not on that list now. That may have been the first time in my life I had not gotten in trouble. When everybody else gotten in trouble, I was the ringleader. I was usually involved in it. But thank God, and I mean that respectfully and sincerely, I missed that adventure. Now I'm going somewhere with this. I was usually involved with everything that was going on because I wanted my friends to like me. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be the life of the party. I wanted to be fun and excitement and making people happy and making people laugh. My personality lends itself to entertainment. Laughing about things being silly. When I was in high school, sometimes I would put on a show and my friends would come to my house and I would, you know, pantomime records or imitate somebody and just. Just to be silly. I didn't understand anything about personalities. But if you ask any of my teachers or any of my friends that I grew up with, I was pretty much the life of the party, the showboat, the one with the big mouth, the one who would try to make other people laugh. Like I said, well, right around that time, right around the time of graduation, after I graduated in 1967.

A couple of months later, in August of 1967.

There was a big revival in our town in a professional football player by the name of Jerry Kraft. He played for the Cleveland Browns. He came and he talked, and a whole bunch of us went to hear him because he was a football player and he was very famous. He was a running back, and he was big and strong. And that night he spoke about life and about the importance of living your life for someone other than yourself. And he talked to us about how he had lived his life for a letter jacket. He had lived his life for money. He had lived his life to get the right girl that he eventually married. He lived his life in order to have his name in a program. I was sitting there thinking, I've done that. Yeah, I've done that. Yeah, I've done that. I've. I could identify with everything he was saying. And then when he got to the end of his message that night, he said, I'm going to tell you something that I have found that works for me. I have only found that if I will live my life for God, if I will look to him every day and say, guide me, help me, lead me, teach me, show me, the way, show me the path of life. That's what I really found, what I was looking for. Well, I don't know how all of this works. Please understand. I'm not any.

Perfect person myself. But something rang true in my head that night, that if I was going to have a better life, I had to take myself off the throne of my life and put someone else on the throne with my life. So I remember just in a very simple manner, please hear me. I'm just sharing what happened to me because I'm going to tell you what happened that night. I remember thinking to myself, I didn't hear thunder or lightning. And I didn't. It wasn't a chilled up and down my spine. I just said, God, help me to get away from my friends.

It really wasn't so much a what I would call a religious prayer or maybe even a religious experience. It was waking up to my friends get me in a lot of trouble. And it might not even had been something I would have ever seen if I hadn't have had a pro football player tell me I was chasing the wrong things. I was chasing money, chasing fame, chasing fortune, chasing girls, chasing being popular. When he said that, I could feel like a sword go through my chest. I've chased all those things, especially the part about being popular. And I just prayed a little prayer that night and I just said this. God, I've been living my life the wrong direction. I've been living it horizontally, trying to make other people happy, trying to make life work. Tonight I'd like to learn to live it vertically. I just would like to look up to you and ask you, would you guide my life? Would you help me? And then it happened. When I went off to college, I got a fresh start because all of my friends didn't go off to college with me. They went off to different colleges. Now, nobody ever told me what I'm about to tell you, but. But it's the truth. Once you graduate from high school and once you go off to college, you will probably never see all of the people that you went to high school with ever again. Now, you may run into them, but I'm just telling you, they will all vanish. I'm going to say it again in case you missed it. Once you graduate from high school, all the people you hang out with and go to the ball games with and eat with and laugh with and have fun with and go to class with, you'll never see them again. I know the word never, you know, never say never. But for the most part Everybody goes their separate way. And then 10 years later, when you come back for your high school reunion, you'll look at each other and go, who are you? Where did you go? Whatever happened to you? I never saw you again after we graduated. That's what happened to me. And I've had that experience.

Said to me enough times that I know it's the case. So here's what I want to say to you today. There are some people in some situations that are harmful for you. And the strongest day of your life will be the day you walk away from all of that. The strongest, most difficult challenge. I'll be 74 years old in just a few days. Looking back at my life, the hardest decision I ever made was I need to get away from all my friends and quit living my life horizontally, that is towards them, making them happy, making them laugh, having the fun, being the life of the party, to living my life vertically. God, would you help me to become a better person? Not think about myself so much, Think about you, think about other people. And here's the crazy thing. I saved the best for last. I was so afraid that if I ever did try to live my life in a wholesome, healthy manner, a way that pleased God, a way that was right and upright and honest and wholesome, if I ever live that my life that way, I won't have any friends. I thought, if I ever start living my life that way, I won't have any friends. You want to hear the truth of the matter? I have more friends than I can keep up with. I'm thinking about starting something called D Face Book and just get rid of all my friends. I have so many friends. I was on a bridge with my wife in the Czech Republic on a bridge that was built in 500 A.D. it was snowing. I had a hood over my head. My wife and I were walking on a bridge. Somebody started yelling, robert Rome. Robert Rome. My wife looked at me and said, we can't go anywhere without someone knowing you. And here, this is the crazy thing. You see, I don't live in such a way any longer that I even care or think about. I wonder what everybody's thinking of me. Does everybody like me? I just want to do what's right and be a good person and love people and be an encouragement. And that's the way to have more friends than you'll ever be able to find any other methodology. In other words, instead of me finding friends, friends found me. There's a scripture that says, if a man's ways, please God, he'll make even his enemies to like him and to be at peace with him. I hope today that you've had a chance to think this through. I don't know where you are on this journey, but. But I know this for a fact and I'm telling you this with all my heart. If you will try to live your life in a vertical manner. God, thank you for a new day. Help me to be a decent person. Help me to be a good person. Help me to be careful what I say about other people. Help me not to talk about others behind their back. Help me to be loving and gentle. Help me to do the next right thing. If you'll live not Help me meet out in the parking lot with Bobby so I can buy a bottle of liquor and give him the money. So. So our parents are going to find out about this and we're all going to get kicked out of school. You don't have to be real smart to know that. Well, again, when you're 17 or 18, you're not. You haven't quite reached your apex of. Of brilliance, to say the least. I hope today I've said something, just maybe one sentence or one word that will help you realize who I hang around with, who I spend time with. Someone said, the five people you hang around with the most are going to be the people that influence you the most and who you will be. Like Charlie Jones used to say, you will be the same person you are right now, 10 years from now, except for the books you read and the people you associate with. I'm careful with what I read. I'm careful who I hang around with because I want my life to count. And I'm sure you do, too. Thanks for listening today. I look forward to our next podcast together as we grow wiser I on the journey of life. Thank you so much. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becoming wiser podcast.com.