Below is the final part of the Amazing Life Story of Ramon Dines.
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At some point, I became aware of a constant poking and soon opened my eyes and lifted my head. On my right was a nurse, I was in an operating room. She was telling the doctor that she couldn’t get an IV in because my veins had collapsed. I turned my head to the left and I can see my left wrist splayed wide open and a doctor operating. He looked up and saw me looking at him. He said to me, “there is no medical justification for you being alive right now, you don’t have enough blood in your body for your heart to pump.” I just laid my head back down and closed my eyes. When I next woke up, I was in ICU. When I left the hospital I was sent to FMC Butner, a medical prison. All today, today as I write this I have been to 12 different prisons. 14 if you count the ones I have been to twice. However, if you have read the first 2 parts of my story so far, you will know that traveling is how I like to live my life so even in prison I have found a way to travel.
I also love to meet new people even if thoses people don’t like me. Prison has allowed me to talk with people I never would have gotten close to on the streets. In my now 21 years of incarceration I have met (no names will be used): a man who shot a president, one who shot a president’s brother, a man who ran a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme, 3 mob bosses, 2 mob hitmen, a former FBI agent turned spy, the man who shot and killed multiple people in the US Capitol, a former member of Enron’s board of directors, the pirate from the movie “Captain Phillips”, the first bomber of the World Trade Center, and a Canadian business mogul. I have walked with dozens of people who have jumped the white house fence, learned how to make white lightning, and seen so many murders in prison over stupid things like TV.
People are constantly asking me, “How do you do it?”. My answer is always the same. “I didn’t have a choice.” So I am going to lay it all out for you right now. I am happy. Not to be locked up, but because I figured, or rather I was revealed the TRUTH. My absolute favorite Bible verse is 2 Timothy 2:15 which says, “Study to show yourself approved workman unto God, rightfully dividing the word of truth.” First let me say I am not a fan of Paul who wrote that verse. To me Jesus is all the word you need. However, that does not mean Paul wrote anything helpful.
What I have learned from God is that God is love. There is only God and you cannot ever be separated from God. There is more than enough of everything. I have a friend who always says, “Get rich are try sharing!” I get it. My motto is “If you want something different from what you’ve always had, you have to do something different from what you’ve always done. Live your life because life is not a spectator sport.”
People ask me if I pray. When you realize that God is all there is, your whole life is prayer. Jesus told us “that which you do unto the least of these, you also do unto me.” I am a work in progress. I am actively dismantling my own ego so that I don’t constantly place everything and everyone into boxes of my own creation. I have stopped asking myself what “I” think because honestly who cares? Instead I am reminding myself to accept “what is” without assigning a label of “good” or “bad” such as “good news” or “bad news”. Instead it is just news. I am so much happier now that I have excused myself from being your moral enforcement officer.
So to conclude, I was rich and I was poor. I can assure you I would rather be rich. I made the most money when I wasn’t concerned with making money. I have been the happiest when I wasn’t concerned with how others are living their lives. If I see a situation that offends me, I will change the situation or change my location. I choose to be happy I choose to love God however God may be, and I choose to let God love me back.
Thank you so much for reading my story.
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Hopefully you guys enjoyed Ramon’s story. He is an amazing person to speak to because he is very humble and down to Earth.