Unraveling Life's Three Biggest Decisions

Have you ever had a day where you felt like you needed to make about a million decisions? Have you ever gone to school or gone to work or been with your family or on a trip and you just felt like it was one decision after another? Where we're going to have lunch? What hotel are we going to stay in? What, do I have all my clothes with me? Did I remember my toothbrush? Do I have all the work that I needed to get done completed? And on and on and on. And the list goes and never ends. But you know what? I've lived long enough to know there are only three decisions you ever need to make in your life. And all other decisions will follow from those three basic decisions. So I guess we ought to take a little bit of time to ask ourselves the question, what are the three decisions that I need to make? Sometimes it's going to take a little bit of effort, a little bit of learning and a little bit of coaching to get these three decisions clear in your mind. So let's start.

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 fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

The first major decision that you need to make is, is what am I going to live my life doing? That's called your vocation. That's called your education. Are you aware, and believe me, I was not aware when I was going to school, teachers were actually trying to teach me something. They were trying to help me. History, English, math, science. When I was in school, learning my ABCs and my numbers and all of the academic information, I had to learn some basic things that I could build upon. I had to learn the Alphabet. I had to learn to phonetically sound out words. C, A, T, C, A, T, T, Cat. Cat. So that's the way you learn how to read. You learn by phonetically learning that letters have sounds.

So education is important. Learning numbers, learning how to write. Can you remember holding a pencil? Learning how to write letters when you were in school, learning how to write the Alphabet, the uppercase and the lowercase. All that's part of your education.

Well, what are you going to live your life doing? You need to have a foundation in your education. But there will come a day that you take all of those foundational truths and you say, what do I want to do with my life? Do I want to go into sales? Do I want to go into medicine? Do I want to go into law? Do I want to become A computer programmer. What do I want to do? That's the big decision that you have to make now. Growing up, I wanted to be a dentist. I wanted to be a dentist. Why? Because I liked my dentist. He had a nice 1956 Thunderbird, white car with a tire on the back. He had a beautiful wife, a beautiful house. Zo grass. I couldn't even say Zoysa grass forever. I had. Somebody had to explain to me why his grass in his yard felt like carpet. He had three kids. I just wanted to be Dr. Henry Gold. He was my dentist. When I went to see him one day after I graduated from high school to find out, now, how do you go about being a dentist? He said, you don't want to do this. He said, I'm trapped in this office all day long. He said. He said, I know you. He had known me my whole life. He said, you're more of a free spirit. You don't want to be trapped in an office doing the same thing all day long. Now you see, that's what I'm talking about. I think I could have been a dentist academically, but that's not what I was designed to do. I'm a little bit more of a free spirit. I love the fact that I have a lot of different activities going on in a lot of different areas. Let me encourage you. What do you want to do with your life now? At Personality Insights, we offer training for teenagers. They can take an assessment called Get Real. And the assessment offers 20 to 30 different profiles for each of the four different personalities. You may be the dominant type, you may be the inspiring type, you may be the supportive type, or you may be the cautious type. Feel free to take an assessment. They're called Get Real, the Get Real Assessment for Teens. You can go to our website www.communityinsights.com or discoveryreport.com and take an assessment and find out what kind of vocation you would be most comfortable doing. Now, I believe in freedom. That means I believe you can become anything you want to become. However, you will enjoy some things better than others. Again, I could have become a dentist, but I think I am enjoying being a business owner and a motivational speaker and a trainer and a coach in many other areas of life where I can speak and travel and go and do rather than being in an office all day long. But again, you have to find what suits you best. What fits fits your personality style. Step number one, what am I going to live my life doing now? Also, let me just before we move on I realize if you're young, listening to this, you might be thinking, how am I supposed to know what I need to be doing my whole life? And that's a fair question. I really don't think it's fair for an 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 year old young person to have to find out what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life and decide at that point in time. Are you aware that over 50% of people who graduate from college with a specific college major never use the major that they went to school and studied four years to get an academic degree in a particular academic discipline, then they never use it. That's kind of sad, isn't it? That's why I would encourage you. Find a mentor, find someone older than you, talk to them, take in a personality assessment, and end up doing something that you enjoy. The first and most important decision of the three that you're learning to make is what am I going to live my life doing? Number two, who am I going to live my life with? This is what we call marriage. This is what we call you find a partner for life, you find a spouse.

Being married is challenging, but it's wonderful. Most of us came from a family. I mean, after all, I doubt very seriously if somebody found you under a rock outside one day. We were born and we had a mom. Hopefully we came from a family that was somewhat healthy. I mean, we all have dysfunctional families. So don't feel bad if you think your family's dysfunctional. I all families dysfunctional. Someone once noted that God created Adam and Eve, put them in a perfect environment. They messed that up in no time. So there is no perfect family. But there is the fact that one day you will fall in love. Love is unexplainable. Love is simply beyond comprehension. Love makes no sense because it's a lot of hard work, but it's wonderful. Think about two people meet each other and they fall in love and they want to get married and they want to have children and they want to have a family. May I tell you something? The greatest experience you will ever have in this lifetime is a loving relationship with another person. May I tell you something else? The most difficult, challenging, upsetting, difficult situation you will ever have in this lifetime is a loving relationship with another person. You see, it works both ways. Who are you going to live your life with? May I tell you something from personal experience? Take your time. And I also want to encourage you. This is the best advice you'll ever get. These podcasts are about wisdom. Listen carefully. Marriage is not finding the right person. Marriage is becoming the right person. You see, if you want to marry Prince Charming or Snow White, I have news for you. They're both dead. Neither one are alive. Because there is no perfect man and there is no perfect woman. There are no perfect people. You will marry someone who's really, really good, but they have their downside, too. Someone once said that dating is the most deceitful time of your whole life because you're trying to trick the other person into believing that you're wonderful and perfect. And you're not. None of us are. We all have our good points and we all have our bad points. We have our good days and our bad days. Let me encourage you, be careful who you spend your life with. That decision, all three of these are tied for first place. As I have heard it and read it and seen it for many, many years, nothing will make or break your life as much as who you marry, because they will be part of everything that you do. So again, decision number one, what are you going to live your life doing? Decision number two, who are you going to live your life with? And finally, the only other decision is, who are you going to live your life for? Now, I'm going to put on my coaching hat for you. I'm going to put on my, if I could call it my pastor hat for a minute and tell you I have discovered the only person that really is worth living your life for is. Is God. Because he loves you and he cares about you and he wants to guide you. He created you in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. God was the one that thought up marriage. God was the one that thought up work, vocation. These are created. And then God was the one that also thought up having a relationship with you. Are you aware the Bible says we love God because He first loved us? You see, if I live my life for my wife or my children, that's going to come to an end one day. When my children grow up and they leave, or when my marriage. One day I could lose my spouse. Hopefully not, but could. That's possible. People have died. Who are you going to live your life for? Are you going to live your life for your mom or dad? I promise you, they're not going to live forever. We've lost. I've lost both of my parents. Are you going to live your life? Your brother or sister? That's a really bad, short decision to make because they aren't perfect either. So who are you going to live your Life for. Let me kind of coach you on. Here's the way I do this. I wake up. Someone once said, you wake up in the morning and you either say good morning, Lord, or good Lord, it's morning. Well, I wake up and I say, good morning, Lord, I pray you'd guide me today. Help me to be the person you want me to be. God, I, I, I appreciate you giving me life. I love you. I pray you'd help me to. Would you just help me today? Let me tell you about something that happened early this morning. Early this morning we had a bunch of trash and, and we have a trash service and they pick up trash. But these were old. An old refrigerator, an old air conditioning unit that was an old, some kitchen utensils and things that have just gotten worn out. And we have a dump that's not very far from the house. So I've been there many, many times to throw away a lot of things. But this morning they said, be sure and take all of these appliances to a different area. Well, I had never been to that area before. So I was backing up and I was backing up and all of a sudden the vehicle next to me, the guy yelled, stop, stop. He screamed at me so loud, I immediately stopped. If I had gone back about another foot, I had not been in this area. There was a drop off. See, you're supposed to back up and then stop, open up the rear of your vehicle or your truck and throw stuff into a, a dump, Dumpster area that was about 12 or 16ft deep. If I had not stopped, my vehicle would have backed over down into that. It would have basically flipped my vehicle up on its end. I would have been, Hopefully I would, I know I would have been injured. Hopefully I would have not have been killed. It would have totaled my car. I mean, when a vehicle falls off backwards off the edge of a cliff for 12 or 16ft into a dumpster, that's not a good day. Now you could say, wow, you sure were lucky. My wife was with me and she said, aren't you glad we prayed this morning and asked God to help us and guide us. Now see, I. You can believe whatever you want to. I'm not going to stand over you and make you believe. Anyway, I choose to believe there is a God and he loves me and guides me and helps me. I want to live my life for him. Now listen carefully. Not in order to get into heaven. I believe that heaven is a gift. The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. If you simply have the attitude or the faith. Jesus, I believe you died for me and paid for my sins. And I trust in you. I ask you to be my Savior. The Bible says, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God, there it is, Is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Romans 6:23. Again, I'm doing these podcasts in what I call my best wisdom. And the best wisdom I could give you in the three decisions of life are. Number one, what are you gonna live your life doing? I hope you'll choose something you absolutely love. I love what I do. Every day is a vacation. Someone said, if you like what you do and you do what you like, every day's a vacation. I've been on vacation for like the last 30 years. I love enjoy what I do. The second big decision, who you can live your life with. I realize I'm smart enough and I have lived long enough to know there can be some devastation in broken relationships. I've gone through broken relationships and perhaps you have, too. Let me encourage you. Don't look for a perfect person. Do everything you can to become the person you need to be. I want to be the kind of person, and if you're a female or a male, listen to this, men, I'm speaking to you right now. What I'm about to say will melt the heart of any woman listening to this. I don't want to get married to fix some woman. I want to be the kind of man that would be worthy of being in a good relationship. I would want to be mentally, physically, spiritually, financially healthy. And I would want to be loving and patient and kind. I would want to be the kind of person worthy to be in a relationship that every woman would be attracted to. And I say that simply because that's what a woman really wants, is a man she can feels secure, who loves her and cares about her. That's what you need to become. Become the person worthy of being in a marriage. First decision, what are you going to live your life doing? Second decision, who are you going to live your life with? And finally, who are you going to live your life for? I know that salvation is a gift. I've put my faith in Christ. But I also know that day by day, I want God to change me. Work in my heart, work in my life, make me the kind of person he wants me to be. Now, if you'll Take those three decisions. Everything else will follow. Everything else will be a direct result of one of those areas. What am I living my life doing? Some of you may be in school. That's your job right now. Some of you may be single. That's fine. Nothing wrong with being single. Some of you may be married. It's funny how most of the people I know who are single want to be married. Most people who are married want to be single. That's another indication. It's a challenge. It's difficult. Who are you going to live your life with? And finally, and I believe maybe most importantly of all three, who are you going to live your life for? I'm 74 years old. I don't know how much longer I got. I'm in good health. I'm shooting for 88 because that was my football number in high school and in college. But if I have 14 more years, that's fine. Every day I'll wake up. Good morning. Lord, I pray you'd guide me today. Help me not to back my car into a dumpster and kill myself today. Help me to be loving and kind. Help me to listen. Oh, God, help me to know how to keep my mouth shut. I don't know if you can tell or not, but I got a big mouth. God, help me not to say anything unkind. Help me to be the person you want me to be. I've been praying that since I was 18 years old. Someone said, this is the best prayer you can ever learn to pray. I listened. Here's what they said. God, I pray that you would help me to become the person you want me to be. That was in 1967. Not every day, but almost every day since 1967, I have said, God, I pray you'd be with me today. Help me to become the person you want me to be. I'm not there yet, but I'm a whole lot down the road, further than I was in 1967. I trust that this has been an encouragement to you. What are you going to live your life doing? Who you live your life with and who you're going to live your life for. Keep those in focus and you'll have the life that you desire and want. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I look forward to our next podcast in time together. Thank you so much.

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