WILL YOU HAVE REGRETS WHEN YOU GROW OLD?

 I recently saw an article asking the same question and I immediately said NO.  Of course I am already OLD, but people have ask me would I do anything different if I could go back in time or if I had any regrets about the decisions I made in the past and I always said NO.  I have had a blessed life and although I had many struggles in my life with the help of God I got through them and think the struggles made me a stronger person. 

After reading the article I realized I do have some doubts about some decisions I made, but I do not know if I could really classify them as regrets.  I recently was sent a small quote, “Sometimes you have to be hard.”  I found that difficult to do.  You see no one help me with one penny of my education, no one help me start a business, no one has ever been at my side, except God.  He was my shadow and the only one I could ever turn to.  My dad died when I was a teenager and from that time until I made it on my own it has been a struggle.  We went from the good life to poverty in a matter of months. 

I have always reached out to help others so they would not have to experience the things I went through and have been burned over and over again.  My best friend constantly ask me, “Father, why do you do it?”  I have helped various members of his family and he has always said, “Father, you are making a big mistake.  They will not appreciate the help and they will use you not the opportunity you gave them to get ahead.”  He was right every time.  The more you give the more they want.  You give them opportunities to get out of poverty and they are not willing to do what is necessary to accomplish the task.  They would prefer you just give them money every week.  Now if I have regrets this would be a significant one.  You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot make the horse drink.  I have a hard time putting that into practice.

I also came to realize how much I had worried about the welfare of others.  I felt an obligation to fix everything and try to make life better for others.  I was worrying about someone else problems and that is foolish.  I was trying to fix others life and neglecting my own.  Worry is never a solution to anything.  Most of the things we worry about will never happen in the first place.  Worry is a waste of time and only contributes to your stress.  

I was not one who was afraid to take risk.  Many Senior Citizens in the survey put that as the number two thing they regretted.  I always preferred taking a risk rather than later thinking ‘I should have’.  I have never been afraid to fail because I always knew I could try again.  I have never wondered if I would have done this what would life be like today.  My advice to young people is – TAKE THE CHANCE.  It is foolish to try and talk yourself out of trying new things. I am not speaking of drugs or alcohol or improper sex that can destroy you or others. If you want to go to Europe, do it! If you want to start a business, do it! But, always do your research before you do it.  Getting into your thirties with a long string of regrets will haunt you all your life. 

The survey found that 76% of Senior Citizens regretted not following their dream.  I do not have any ‘should of’ or ‘ought of’ in my past.  I knew I wanted to be a minister and an entrepreneur.  I was told a thousand times you have to choose one or the other.  I did not settle for one or the other - I had both.  God made it all possible.  My first business was presented to me and I saw it as a way of giving employment to unemployed people in my parish.  I took the risk and from that day until the day I retired I always owned a business and used it for the glory of God.   I feel I was all I should have been and have no regrets. 

Many baby boomers regretted they had not travel more when they were young.  They put it off until they were old and found then their health would not allow them to travel.  Young people, if you do not do it now, you will wish you had later.  One day you to will find your traveling days are over and you will regret it.  I have been to Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Laos, Malaysia, Europe, Mexico, all the Virgin Islands and all the USA states.  Some of these places I have made repeat visits.  Traveling is rewarding and if you have the opportunity to do it take it.  To me traveling is more important than a fancy car, branded clothes, remodeling the kitchen, expensive home or jewelry.  I admit I have always had a very nice home with very nice furniture and today I live in a modest townhouse with modest furniture and you know I was not happier in the expensive home with expensive furniture than I am where I live today.  Those expensive things are not really for you to enjoy they are you to show off.

The thing that was high on the list of Senior Citizens was not spending enough  time with loved ones.  Reluctantly I have to say I do have some thoughts about that.  Regrets no, but maybe ‘wish’ I had done better.  I took care of my mother the last 18 years she lived.  I tried to avoid the rest of my family because they only came around to get, not give.  I adopted my nephew and I do wish I would had not worked as many hours and spent more time with him as he was growing up.  I do feel I cheated him.  I was fortunate enough to be with both parents when they died.  The rift with my older sister that left us not speaking to one another for nearly 30 years does hurt.  The only constellation is I did try for about ten years to have a relationship with her.  She is now 90 and I am 80 and both confined to home because of health issues and will never be able to see one another again, thank God we resolved our issues through the mail. I would say to young people do whatever it takes to resolve problems with those you love.

Some Senior Citizens regret the bad habits they formed when they were young and have never been able to break them or broke them too late in life, the damage had already been done. I did not smoke, drink or use drugs because I witness how it destroyed my family members.  I do wish I would have paid more attention to my health when I was young and exercised more.  I ignored a lot of signs because I did not want to admit my heart was not as it should be and that I had been cursed with the family disease.  If you young people are doing drugs, drinking too much, ignoring your health know this you are not only hurting yourself you are hurting those that love you now and may love you in the future. 

Many Senior Citizens regret they did not take education seriously.  If that happens to be you it is never to late to get an education.  You may not be one for college, but there are many good technical fields you can go into if properly trained.  Education is one thing no one can take from you.  I do not recommend going in debt to go to school.  There are plenty of State funded programs you can now take advantage of.  I believe having the name Yale, Harvard or Purdue on your diploma will help very few people.

Thirty-eight percent of Senior Citizens said they regret working at a job all their adult life that they hated.  They were afraid to leave because where they were they were making good money.  It is not worth it.  The real reason they stayed was  they were are afraid to take a risk.  I would rather make less money and be happy than make lots of money and have regrets.  You young people had better stop and figure out how many hours you will spend at a place of employment during your lifetime before you sacrifice happiness for more money. 

The Number 2 thing on the list Senior Citizens regretted was the choice they made with their money.  They ran up debt, lived above their means, did not save enough and spent too much on their adult children trying to make their lives easier.  I started out my adult life thinking about the future.  I read in a church bulletin your money should be set aside each and every payday this way 10% for God, 10% for personal savings and you live on the rest and if anything is left at the end of the money it goes in personal savings.  I have practiced that all my life. The only thing I ever bought on credit was a house.  If I wanted something I figured up the cost and began putting that aside and when I could pay cash I got it.  You really enjoy it much more when you are not worried about how you are going to pay the interest and the principle. I had a friend that used a Sears Revolving Charge Card for yeas.  She never was late on a payment then she got cancer.  Sears eventually came to collect the merchandise.  She thought they were going to take back the last thing she had purchased and not paid off.  Sears took everything she had ever purchased on that card that they could find in her house.  She did not realize the old things were the collateral on the new things she purchased on the card.  I learned a good lesson that day.

Now the number one regret of Senior Citizens was worrying about what people would think.  I AM GUILTY! I did not stop worrying about what people would think  until I was 50 years old.  Today I do not care what other people think about me.  I care what God thinks about me.  I cannot please everyone and I no longer try to.  It is my life!  Young people should go after their own life and their own happiness regardless of what others think.  Be who you are and say what you feel.  Those that are hurt by the truth are not your friends anyway.  White Lies in order to get along with someone never works.  The truth eventually surface and always surfaces at the worse time.  Life is shorter than you think, everyone has flaws, everyone is focused on what is best for them rather than what is best for you.  Embrace uncertainty and do not be afraid to make mistakes.   

I spent my life trying to please everyone in my family and my parish.  I realized too late that it is pointless and impossible.  One Sunday I confronted a problem in my parish from the pulpit.  I announced from that Sunday on I will do what God is leading me to do and if you do not like it leave.  The door in this church works both ways and there are a lot of churches in this town for you to go to and ruin.  No one is going to tell me what to preach or not preach any longer, they are not going to tell what programs I should or should not start and they certainly are not going to tell me who they want or do not want in this church or the kind of people they want in OUR church.  This is not OUR church this is God’s church.  My problems stopped immediately. 

BE WHO GOD CREATED YOU TO BE. BE YOURSELF AND YOU WILL FIND HAPPINESS. BE YOURSELF AND YOU WILL HAVE NO REGRETS WHEN YOU GROW OLD.    

Know When to Hold Them, Know When to Fold Them - Kenney Rogers

You are not a failure until you refuse to try again. I have only met two people in my lifetime who I consider to be failures.  They both had things in common: Early in life they experienced failure and regardless of the opportunities presented to them they refused to try again; they had spouses that were enablers; they refused to acknowledge their part in their failure, they were good at blaming others and both were waiting on God to turn things around.

I have always contributed my success to God and not giving up, but that does not mean there were not times when I got out. I have invested time, money and energy in some losers, but I always was willing to cut my losses and get out. I did hang in until I could sell for a small profit. What might not be good for you may be great for someone else. In all but one case the people that purchased the businesses I sold were successful and happy with the purchase.  Unfortunately, too many people do not even consider getting out as an option. They will hang in until they lose it all. I always had an exit strategy in case I needed it.

Hard work can be enjoyable if you are enjoying what you are doing, but when the enjoyment is gone it is time to get out. Thinking about your capital, time and energy invested may cloud your thinking. It is often hard to give up on the dream of what you thought you could achieve.

 It is a common misconception that winners never quit, but the truth is it can take a considerable amount of strength and courage to quit the things that are not right for you. The most successful people in the world are often the ones that have let go of something in order to pursue a bigger dream and achieve greater happiness. Winners never quit when they know they are on the right path, but when quitting is the right thing to do, quitting and refocusing your energies can lead to a happier and healthier lifestyle.

Before you judge too harshly a person that quits or fails and tries again think about how your success in life compares to the following men who failed and started over many times: Henry Ford - Ford failed five times before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company; R. H. Macy - Macy failed seven times before finally hitting big with his store in New York City; F. W. Woolworth - Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customer in a dry good store because his first employer thought he was not smart enough, but went on to found the most successful general merchandise store in the world; Soichiro Honda - Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation because they thought he was not a good engineer and he decided to make motor scooters in his home; Bill Gates - Gates dropped out of Harvard and his first business venture failed; Harland David Sanders - Sanders had his famous secret chicken recipe rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant finally accepted it; Walt Disney - Disney was fired from his first newspaper job because they said he lacked imagination; Thomas Edison – Edison was fired from two jobs and made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah Winfrey, Harry S. Truman all experienced failures and had to start over.

If you are unhappy, have lost your passion or you are hurting yourself or others it is time to quit and try again. Continuing doing what is making you unhappy is only robbing you of a better future. We only live once and have no time to waste on anything other than what contribute to our happiness and success.

Stop thinking starting over is a waste of time. There is a lesson to be learned in everything and it is often the lessons learned in failures that can bring us one step closer to finding what really does make us happy and successful.  Failure and defeat are often life’s greatest teachers.

Fear of failure can keep us from achieving great things. Great success often depends on great risk, and failure is simply a common byproduct. To achieve your personal best you can’t fear failure. To achieve any worthy goal, we must take risks which leaves us open to the possibility of failure. Decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying and give it a try.

It is important that we remember failure can only lead to success if we learn from our failures, accept responsibility for our failures, and do not repeat past mistake while expecting a different result.

Success requires a plan, drive, patience, integrity, passion, self-confidence, hard work, self-reliance and prayer.

God has a plan for your life!

It would be great if once we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior life would be smooth sailing from then on. But, believers like non-believers have ups and downs and go from highs to lows. That is just life!  Our lives are incredibly busy.  Our schedules are rigorous. Our time is short and precious.

I grew up in a Christian home, my parents were good people, but they were not ones to take going to church seriously.  It goes without saying they could have been better role models when it came to praying, attending church and having faith in God. How did I as a child come to have a desire for Sunday school, Church, Christian youth organizations and realize from a very young age I wanted to be a minster? God had a plan.

I am sure Joseph asks the same questions I did as he experienced the ups and downs in his life (Genesis). His brothers hated him because they were jealous of his relationship with their father and Joseph was a young dreamer who delighted in carrying tales on his brothers to their father. Joseph dreamed one day his brothers would one day bow down to him and he was foolish enough to tell them of his dream. This only angered them more.

The brothers were out doing chores for their father when their father decided to send Joseph to check on them. When they saw him coming they began to plot how they could get rid of him. They settled upon throwing him in a well and leaving him to die. They would tell their father a wild animal devoured him.

Some foreign slave traders came along and they changed their plan. They would sell Joseph to the slave traders. Joseph ends up a slave in the Egyptian Pharaoh’s house. Joseph’s time serving the Pharaoh was filled with highs and lows. He had the favor of the Pharaoh and because of circumstances beyond his control the Pharaoh would turn against him. There was a period of time when the Pharaoh placed Joseph in prison.

He was released from prison when he interpreted the Pharaoh’s dreams, dreams that even the wisest men in Egypt could not interpret. Joseph told the Pharaoh that a seven year famine was coming and that he had seven years to prepare for it. The Pharaoh followed Joseph’s advice and Joseph became second in command only to the Pharaoh. God had a plan! 

The famine became so bad that Joseph’s brothers had to travel to Egypt to ask for help. They did not know they would be asking Joseph for help. Remember Joseph’s childhood dream. His brothers bowed before him when they ask for help.  When Joseph revealed to them who he was they became afraid, but Joseph told them not to fear him. He helped his family through the five remaining years of the famine. It was at that time Joseph realized that from boyhood God had a plan for his life and the ups and downs he experienced were preparing him to save the lives of his family members.

Has God shown you the ‘why and what for’ of your life? Even the years that Joseph did not understand the ‘why and what for’ of his life he never lost faith in God. 

We are passing through a time when great changes are coming in the world. America is not as great as she once was. We elect men and women to office that are not fit to lead. People are becoming more hopeless than I have seen in my lifetime. Many are ready to give up and many have given up. It is more important than ever for believers to constantly remind themselves God is still in control and God brings about possibilities that we can yet see or imagine. As Joseph we must remain faithful to God.

In the summer of my sixth year I was attending vacation Bible school when I became sick. It took about five days for my parents to be told I had polio. I spend months in the hospital. I had the best medical care at the time because exactly 91 days before I became sick my family was visiting my sister and an insurance man knocked on the door and persuaded my father to purchase a polio policy. The policy had to be in effect ninety days prior to diagnosis. God had a plan!

At age twelve I told my mother I had terrible pains in my stomach. She thought I was trying to skip school and she told me to get dressed for I was going to school. My sister dropped by and she convinced my mother that something was wrong and they needed to take me to the hospital. We arrived at the Community Hospital in Jacinto City, Texas and the doctor said it was my appendix. I needed surgery right away and they could not wait until my father arrived to sign release papers. The doctor took a legal gamble and took me in surgery. The appendix burst in his hands as he was removing it. God had a plan!

At age twenty-seven I had just finished my deaconate year. I ran six miles every day at Memorial Park in Houston, Texas. I noticed it was getting difficult for me to complete my run and I was totally exhausted when I did. It took several weeks before I was forced to go to the doctor. I was told I had Guillen Barre Syndrome. It is a disease that affects the nervous system. You have paralysis that resembles a stroke. I thought my ministry and active lifestyle was over. For two years I could not walk without assistance. God had a plan!

In my late forties I had by-pass surgery.  The recovery time then was much longer than now and the suffering was far greater. I was to return to work the following day and I decided to burn a large pile of logs on my farm. I intended to use diesel fuel, but used gasoline instead. When I struck the match there was an explosion and I was burned over all my body. Once again I would spend months in the hospital and at home nursing my wounds. I made a complete recover with only minor scaring. God had a plan!

Six angioplasty procedures would follow over the next 15 years and at times I thought of just giving up. God had a plan!

When angioplasty no longer worked and I could not have any more by-pass surgery they began to put in stints. I now have six and the last two were put in after I came to the Philippines. When they were putting in the last two they administered Diprivan Propfol not knowing I was allergic to it and I flat lined. God had a plan!

I was told when I was in my early fifties I would have to take disability Social Security, but I refused to give up. God had a plan!

Just this year I changed cardiologist because I was told nothing could be done for me. I was in the final stages of heart failure and my medicines were at the maximum levels. God led me to a doctor who referred me to another cardiologist and within a few months I was able to get out of the house and go back to church. God had a plan!

My ups and downs have made me a better minister. It is easier to give advice to others if you have experienced similar problems.  It is easier to understand the emotional turmoil they are going through. Of course I wish life had been all smooth sailing, but then I would not be the person I am today if God had not allowed me to encounter difficulties.  I now realize through it all God had a plan and He was always there with me.

What has God done for you? I bet if you give it serious thought you will come to realize that God has provided you many escapes from disaster. God has a plan for your life.

I recently heard a minister say on television, “In the way I walk and talk, in the way I think and pray, in everything I do, I want to honor God by the way I live each day.” I have tried to live my life in that manner, but many times I have failed. Regardless of the times I have failed God never stopped loving me and never turned His back on me. God will do the same for you. God has a plan!