The Richly or Poorly Show
Show Transcript
shdawson-20260721.mp3
Episode 07/21/2026
07/21/2026
Hello! Welcome to The Richly or Poorly Show!
My name is Dr. Stephen Dawson, and I am your show host.
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The show's motto is unmistakable: RICHLY IS GOODLY!
Please consider how you define the term good as we journey through life together in your pursuit of defining the term richly in your life.
Last week, I presented new information to my intended audience about The Richly or Poorly Show to provide them with an update about the progress of the show's audience growth, informed them about the show ambassador, informed them about the email list, and asked for their help.
Today, I will present on the topic of relationships. It will take several episodes to present relationships to you in preparation for presenting The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success to you.
I bring to your attention the episode of December 30th, 2025, where I addressed the term renege. I stated the following text in that episode toward the end of the presentation.
"The same is true with renege as it is with justice. There is no way to define renege apart from facts in the present tense. Breaking one's word is a wilful choice. It is not an outcome of an unexpected event. The Truth is there is no means to defend the action of breaking one's word by wilful choice."
I thought about how I presented the term renege during that episode over the past few days. It was presented in advance of the April 14, 2026, episode for Determine Trust during the Teaming series. I invite you to review both of these episodes as you see fit to better understand the episode I present to you today.
My intent in presenting to you on the topic of relationships in advance of presenting The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success is to help you build your plan to live your life more richly based on doing it with the selected help of any person, object, process, or natural force you choose to help you.
It is my considered position that forming any relationship is one of the most difficult things there is to do in life. I hold this position because there is the desire to have something from a person, object, process, or natural force, with no guarantee that either the person, object, process, or natural force will relate to you. The entire effort to form the relationship could well be for no gain. It is with this risk in mind that we begin to consider the topic of relationships.
The first part of accomplishing any type of relationship in a person's life is Determine Value. Value must be determined before considering the type of relationship. Each person must decide how much they are willing to pay to get whatever it is they are after from the person, object, process, or natural force they select to help them. Let's go through these options one at a time to contextualize their meaning in the pursuit of living life more richly.
NATURAL FORCE:
I recall the first time I understood the value of fire. We had a fireplace in our home when I was a child. My dad built the fire, it burned, and it happened without much of my thought about it. I helped to get the firewood into the house from a big pile of firewood that showed up from someone that I did not know in a way that I did not understand. It all happened, and that was my extent of understanding fire.
I was in a school day event in the mountains a few years after my limited understanding of fire was established. We were hiking in the mountains, and it began to rain. We hiked to a cabin where we had intended to go when we set out for our day. The cabin had a smell of mold or something. The lady who was our teacher started to build a fire in the fireplace in the cabin. The mold smell was gone in about 20 minutes. I remember being amazed at how the smell left. She explained there was no mold in the cabin, but somewhere near the cabin. The fire helped to circulate the air and to eliminate the mold smell. I did not understand all she explained at the time. What I knew was I was happy to be out of the rain, warming by a fire, with no smell of mold, all while we were eating a sack lunch. My point is, I did not have to master understanding fire to want to be in a relationship with the fire.
I recall learning how to swim in the ocean. I remember being beaten terribly by the waves where the water met the shore. I learned, by trial and error, that there are two and only two ways to deal with waves. First, be on top of the wave. Second, be under the wave. Both positions are where the person is not being beaten by the water. I learned later that it is better to dive into the base of a wave, where the wave flows in the opposite direction from where I am swimming. There is a whole presentation in this lesson alone of going into the deep to be safe to live life more richly. I then learned later that the deeper I go into the ocean, the less the force of a wave can be felt. There is a whole presentation in this lesson alone of going into the deep to be safe to live life more richly. My point is, I did not have to master understanding waves to want to be in a relationship with the water.
OBJECT:
I recall learning more about fire when I was camping as an adult for five days. It was a cold and wet time of the year. We were camping with other folks where we were working in the forest. We had no firewood. We had to travel just over a mile to locate firewood, bring back firewood by traveling another mile, and do this over and over, carrying loads of wood, to get enough wood for us to prepare some dinner and have enough heat for the night, all after working our jobs during the day. It was a long five days. We could not get the fire going with our firewood the first day. I recall one of the workers in our group started a small fire with twigs, then built it up with more and more wood from the bark of the wood, then strips of wood, to have a fire big enough to handle burning logs. I remember watching with amazement how the logs would not burn because there was not enough of a fire to burn them, based on the type of wood we were trying to burn. My point is, I did not have to master understanding fire to want to be in a relationship with the fire.
I recall my first course in learning computers. It was a course about computer history and theory. We never touched a computer in the course. I did well in the course. I also remember the next course I took in learning computers. It was about doing something with computers. I did terribly in the course. I will explain more about this part of my life when we cover The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success. Suffice it to say, I learned more in that course alone about how to use a computer than I did in almost the next five years of my time doing way more complicated things with computers.
PROCESS:
Expanding on my second computer course story, I recall when I was introduced to process engineering. Essentially, process engineering is the input-process-output model that we have covered already in our time together. The input-process-output model was presented in the March 10th, 2026, episode. I invite you to review that episode as you see fit to better understand the episode I present to you today.
So, the thought of writing a process seemed simple enough. Figure out what I want to accomplish, then write out the steps to accomplish whatever result it is that I want to accomplish. The steps are the process. The engineering is using logic to determine the steps that form the necessary process.
Rest assured, I wanted the computer to do what I wanted it to do. I had no idea it would take so many instructions to prepare a computer to do the specific result I wanted. What I wanted the computer to do was not a complicated thing. I wanted the computer to add some numbers together. Well, I spent dozens of hours learning how to prepare a computer to do this addition. I was so discouraged. I thought there had to be a simpler way to prepare a computer to do something as simple as addition to justify my using a computer to do the work instead of either using a calculator or doing the work by hand. I knew it was a better move on my part to use a computer to do the addition, as I would be ready to add numbers together faster than I ever could accomplish by either using a calculator or doing the work by hand, without the risk of committing an error on my part with either the calculator or doing the work by hand. My point is, I did not have to master understanding the computer to want to be in a relationship with the computer.
PERSON:
It is most likely that we who are alive today are the last of humanity that will accomplish work alone. I profess this statement based on the belief that artificial intelligence and robotics that use artificial intelligence today are advanced enough already to be able to provide us significant work assistance benefits in less than a decade from today. It will be difficult to want to work with people when a machine can do a task faster, with little to no errors in accomplishing the task, and not give us a hard time about doing the work as a person could when they complain about doing the work. Granted, there are many benefits of working with people beyond only accomplishing a task. However, the more we use smartphones and smart speakers, the less interested we are in people. I evidence this position by my widespread viewing of almost anyone standing still or sitting with a smartphone in their hand, talking to another person, while they believe they are engaged in discussion and not playing with their phone. The use of a smart speaker is simply a way to either get some information or activate a smart device instead of using a smartphone to do the work. Soon, smart glasses will be common for many people to add to their smartphone and smart speaker technology set. My point is, I do not have to master understanding artificial intelligence, robotics, smartphones, or smart speakers to want to be in relationship with either the information or the device I am accessing, instead of getting the information or device control by way of another person.
I hope you can see the pattern I present with the examples I have covered to contextualize Define Value. Pain has to exceed staying the same for wilful change to occur. The desire for gain can, indeed, also motivate a person to not remain the same for wilful change to occur. Otherwise, we exist the same without any form of change occurring.
What really scares me to the core of my being is the question I have to ask myself every morning when I awake. What is the point of my getting out of bed? Do I really need to do anything? Who cares if I am never heard from again? I have held this same fear since my early childhood days. The only thing that gets me out of bed every day is the desire to have some type of a relationship that I cannot have by staying in bed. What I am describing is not a form of depression, but posing a question to myself to get me into the frame of mind to choose to get up, do something, and live life.
I recall when I was seven years old. I began to play football on a team in a league. It was not the same as watching football on television. My body could not handle the banging on it as part of the sport. I loved football, but could not keep up with the requirements of the game. I recall some of my friends in school being so good at football at the time. What they had was family members preparing them to play the sport. I recall they all dropped out of high school and were pretty much not present intellectually in the years preceding high school. Their family members taught them that they must do well in football to be successful in life. I recall that perspective shaking me pretty good. I was shaken to think I must do something with others in a matter of performance to be somebody in this world. Well, I did not believe it was true then, and I do not believe it is true now. I still love to watch football, and I am much stronger now physically, but I would stop watching football before I would ever tell anyone that they must do something with others in a matter of performance to be somebody in this world. It is a part of my worldview that being somebody is more about knowing what I believe than doing anything. But, this is me. How about you?
I tell you now, without reservation, that I like to do things myself. I have been burned enough in life by those who reneged on a deal with me. It takes longer to succeed in life by going it alone, but the skills developed along the way are stronger and more complex than doing it with the help of either anyone or anything. This individuality is not always possible, as we all need air, water, and other things that we cannot live without. It is also nice to have access to things such as a nice cup of coffee and some time using the Internet every now and then.
The understanding I hope to leave you with today is that the concept of a relationship is difficult for me to process. My presentation to you about the topic of relationships is not based on broad success of having many surface relationships, but it is based on solid reasoning to succeed in ways that matter to advance my life to live my life more richly by having deep relationships. It is similar to the waves illustration I presented earlier in the episode today. I have seen more examples in life of bad relationships than good relationships. More on this part as we get closer to my presenting The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success to you. Suffice it to say, I am sold on the need for relationships, so long as they are healthy relationships regardless of the productivity received from the relationships. It is from this position that the need to Define Value in the relationships is the first step in both establishing and maintaining any form of any relationship.
Well, that's it for today.
RICHLY IS GOODLY!
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Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Richly or Poorly Show!
I have enjoyed presenting to you today.
Until the next episode, I hope you will be safe and join me next week.
Until then.
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