The Way I Want to Believe

I still hold out hope for our future when it comes to those who are coming up behind me. I know that there is going to be a better world, whether or not I am here to experience it or not, doesn’t matter. Human beings will live on way after I’m gone and they deserve to thrive, not just survive, so I’m hoping that my legacy is just that, to teach thrival not survival.

Eileen: We all have dreams and visions of how we want our life to be. How have your dreams evolved over the years and what is your current dream?

Richard: I once had a dream where I was driving a white van on a highway past a forest. There was an opening in the woods, and I turned into it and came upon a large green open meadow. The sky was a brilliant blue with trees surrounding that meadow. I came upon a large stone house with beautiful arched windows in the front and I went inside. When I entered this stone house I found my grandmother on my mother’s side standing in the room. Not a word was spoken, and she came up to me and hugged me as if to say it’s going to be all right.

At that time, I was legally blind. I couldn’t drive and I bicycled everywhere. I had tried to get a license to operate a moped which only travelled at 15 or 20 miles an hour, but the State of Arizona said no. In July 1995 my vision started to deteriorate. I went to my ophthalmologist who said the cataracts that they had removed previously were growing back again and there were two options. The first was to wait and see if maybe they would dissipate on their own. I thought that was a silly option, considering the fact that they were growing now. Option 2 was a lens implant. However, my ophthalmologist told me that I had a 50/50 chance of losing all of my sight and going blind. Completely blind. I told him let’s do it because if that happens, I want to begin the adjustment process now.

On March 6^th, 1996 I had a lens implant in my right eye and my vision went from 2200 to 2080. With corrective lenses, it went to 2050.
Within 4 years I finally found myself with a driver’s license. I bought my first car. It was a green Plymouth Fury 3. One month later I traded it in for a 1998 Chevy Metro. About two years later my parents sold me their Dodge Caravan which it just so happens was white, and I found myself driving on the Phoenix freeways.

That was a dream I had that I would say came true. As for dreams that I have about my future it is amazing how one of them being close to the ocean has come true because now I live in Santa Barbara, California on what is called the South Coast. I now have my own radio program and podcast, Tell Me Your Story, which I have been producing since September 7^th, 2007.

These dreams of the future as they unfold and come to pass give me greater hope of the new dreams that I have: traveling the country in an RV travel trailer, interviewing people who are transforming their lives, thriving in them, and helping others to do the same. Another dream is of moving to Ireland, living there, and continuing to do these programs that are helping people to find new ways of living.

So, as far as the evolutionary process, each dream fulfilled makes way for the next dream that once fulfilled, makes way for the next dream, and so on and so on.

If we only knew we had choices that we could make a big difference in our lives. Oh, that would transform our lives, that would take us places we never been, to people we haven’t met. We have so many choices and yet we don’t even realize that we have choices, and that’s what dreams are all about, to show us the myriad of choices that we have.

Eileen: What has challenged you the most in life? How did you overcome and push through to come out to the other side?

Richard: That’s a good word, challenges. I could answer that question from the standpoint of being born legally blind. I could answer that question from the perspective of having my own mind and trying to make sense of the things that I hear, read, see, and experience.

Being interviewed and completing the questions asked has been challenging, because on the one hand I want to be honest and give answers that are from my heart, mind, and soul. At the same time, thinking about those who will read it and are looking for inspiration, encouragement, and guidance. Of course, I have chosen the former because as I have thought in the past if indeed there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being oh, they already know and so what difference does it make if eight billion other people know.

As I have said many times before, what difference does it make, because most of those people don’t care and don’t have the time or inclination to care because they’re too busy surviving.  I would say that is probably a challenge that I am still working on coming through. Moving from survival to, as I have coined it, thrival.

Eileen: What words of wisdom would you like to pass along?

Richard: We have entered a year that has been designated by man as 20/20. I have taken that and have been promoting 2020 as the year of perfect vision. Of course, that refers to inner vision. I believe that we need to spend more time focusing on our inner life, not just in prayer. We need to spend time meditating, listening, and following the guidance that we are given from moment-to-moment every day.

There are many things that I have pondered about over my lifetime, our existence on this planet, as I now approach my 60th anniversary. On one level, a higher level, I have always felt separate and different from every other human being on the planet. Not in an isolated solitary way, but in a way that speaks to the way I see the world, the universe. To understand self and the work that the physical body is to be. How I spend time going within and pondering those thoughts and ideas that I have had over the past 60 years.

As a side note, the reality is that I am ending my 60th year and beginning my 61st. If you think about it when you celebrate your first birthday, you’re celebrating the completion of the first year and the beginning of the second.

I was told by a dear friend of mine, Ramona Richards, that as I approach that milestone called a birthday, I should be thinking about what I want to do and accomplish in the coming 365 days. As well as, completing tasks that I have been working on in the year concluding. I look forward to much success both career and family, and to new adventures that I haven’t even thought of yet.

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• You can contact Richard at:
• [email protected]
• Tell Me Your Story, http://richarddugan.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-dugan-b8bb2310/
• 805-708-9804