Radical Changes

Change is inevitable; it will happen whether we consciously choose to change or it infiltrates us without knowing it. These changes can be small, like hair color or food preference, or they can have a bigger impact, like changing a major or moving to another country. While a change can be difficult, the choices leading up to the change are most challenging to make.

The Ghetto Preacher, aka Willy Ramos, was a member of a gang until he met Jesus. In the years that he spent with the gang, he saw people get beat up, shunned, even killed, all for the sake of a gang's honor. His life had become so barren that he stood one night with a loaded gun in his hand, ready to take his own life. That was a pivotal moment in his life where he decided to make a change. After that night, Willy began to study the Bible and got to know Jesus. Convinced that what he found was true, he left the gang (not without certain difficulties, such as being stabbed multiple times) and pursued a career in evangelism. Willy took a life that was in precarious circumstances and turned it around to the glorification of God and the advancement of the good word. I find it truly inspirational how someone can turn their life around so radically, going from a drug-taking, woman-chasing, gang member to a God-fearing and morally-driven man.

The second person that I chose to write about is Robert Downey, Jr. His struggle with a drug addiction is a well-documented story that circulated in the tabloids. Downey says that his problem started from the tender age of 8 when his own father, also an addict, gave him drugs. From that moment forward, it was a downhill slide into a world of getting a fix and surviving to the next one. Despite being caught repeatedly with drugs, being arrested, spending months in jail, and being sent to rehab, Downey continued on his downward spiral into oblivion. In 2001, Downey says that he had an epiphany where he realized that if he did not put effort into recovering, he never would. He said in an interview with Oprah that "It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems...what's hard is to decide to actually do it." After Downey finished his rehab, he worked his way to becoming an internationally acclaimed actor in the movie Iron Man.

These two men not only produced a change in their lives, but they were brave enough to make a conscious decision to bring about that change. These changes not only brought them out of the miserable life conditions they were living in, but allowed them to thrive in their environments and stand as role models for others around them.