Sensible ways to spend crazy money
RMIMI PEEL, writing from North Carolina, on what she might do with 1.3 billion dollars
ECENTLY, the jackpot for an American lottery game called Powerball ballooned to a whopping 1.3 BILLION dollars, after growing incrementally for weeks. Finally a winning ticket was sold out in Oregon. Sad to say, I was nowhere near Oregon; however, I did win $12 in the same draw.
Just enough to keep me coming back….
My youngest sister once wrote a one-act play about a woman who won a jaw-dropping jackpot but decided not to claim it for ethical reasons. Certainly there are many reasons to abhor the lottery: it’s a tax on the poor; its runners probably pocket more money than the schools it ostensibly supports; gambling addictions are nightmarish for individuals and their families and clearly the lottery aids and abets addiction.
Even so, the idea that someone – even a fictional character – might respond to winning the lottery in the manner depicted taxes my brain!
The hesitant beneficiary might’ve done great good with the winnings. She could’ve single-handedly funded an anti-lottery movement!
Being karma-minded myself, I’ve already got some pet projects picked out to which I shall donate liberally if I were to win.
First I’ll create the world’s finest dog rescue center, just for pitbulls.
Then I’ll endow the preschool/ daycare where I work. I’ll continue to work there part-time (gratis, of course), simply because I gain far more from working with those children than just my pay. My endowment will subsidize the paltry sum the school’s dedicated teachers currently earn. My only caveat: I must be in charge of all hiring and firing!
Naturally, I’ll set up all my loved ones for life, although there may be little to brag about there since, as Jesus said, it’s easy to love our own friends and family; it’s loving all those OTHER folks that’s hard…but I might take issue with the Lord – in my experience it’s not always THAT easy to love one’s own family and friends.
But beyond my own inner circle and favorite dogs, what good might I do for the world? I’ll be chomping at the bit to put my money where my mouth currently is on a panoply of pressing causes and issues.
My paltry billion dollars and change won’t go all THAT far in the scheme of things, but I’ll do all I can – at least locally – to help mitigate climate change, and help improve the sad state of our education system that’s created a populous so ignorant it’s embracing authoritarianism or, to call it what it really is: fascism. I’ll do everything my money could buy to eradicate the malignancy that is Donald Trump, ditto the Russian madman, and to get radically overdue gun control laws passed in the US. I’ll throw extravagant high-ticket fundraisers – a natural progression from the potluck gatherings I currently host at my little townhouse.
I haven’t always played the lottery, having been raised to disapprove of gambling, and North Carolina didn’t even have a lottery until this century. The first people I ever met who played were my first exhusband’s family.
Like them he loved gambling: playing blackjack in Vegas, poker with anyone who’d play, betting on pro sports (with “side bets” placed on everything from Jeopardy to his own tennis matches and rounds of golf ).
We lived in several western states – California, New Mexico, and Washington state – with lotteries, and while he’d occasionally play, I never did, didn’t even know how. His interest was mild compared to his family in Florida, for whom the lottery seemed an obsession.
During marathon conversations they’d fantasize together about winning. Back then I considered them a pathetic bunch, but now I understand – thinking about what you’d do with all that money provides more free fun than just about anything other than sex. It’s also a great way to clarify your values – not that they were thinking about that – but it did serve to bring their family together.
Whenever a jackpot skyrocketed, they spoke of nothing else. Their banter always centered around this amusing catchphrase: “If I win, maybe I’ll throw you a bone.”
So I long associated the lottery with guys like my ex-husband’s dad, the sort of low-life who’d empty his overflowing car ashtray into a restaurant’s parking lot.
Several years after my first marriage ended, my second ill-fated marriage began. That relationship, which played out in North Carolina, started out like a waking dream of “Moons and Junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy, dancing way it feels, when every fairy tale comes real…” (Joni Mitchell)
Incidentally, I’d advise AGAINST marrying anyone who makes you feel that way; there’s such a thing as too much passion!
That gilded romance had me so high on life that I pulled a U-ey regarding the lottery, thinking: “Mimi, you’re a lucky person, you could play this sucker and win.” (People do win, after all. I’ve read that even some statisticions play the lottery!)
The first time I ever bought a ticket I painstakingly chose numbers I considered lucky, all to do with my new husband. But choosing specific numbers rather than just accepting “quick picks” randomly issued by the machine was a mistake; if I missed playing I was terrified lest my numbers come up…and I wholeheartedly believed they would.
I dropped those numbers years ago, after the supreme joy of my life had morphed into the most unfathomable betrayal. I’d invested everything in a flimsy stock.
Now, after many years of steady play, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably never win a megajackpot. I just play for the entertainment value, occasional “hits” of $250, and in the vague hope that I might someday win a larger prize that could relieve the financial pressure of my “golden years.”
But it’s more complicated than that, if I’m honest. There’s a duel being fought between my two natures: materialistic vs spiritual. My more mature and authentic values system (the spiritual side) believes that “Happiness isn’t getting what you want, it’s wanting what you have.” Deep down I understand that winning the lottery might destroy everything good I have now, opening the floodgates to a tsunami-sized set of new problems…but simultaneously, if I WERE to win, my materialistic side believes that I’m bright, educated and wellinformed enough not to be taken in by the fraudsters and half-baked investments that so many succumb to, that surely I possess the mental fortitude to scrape off the hangerson.
Unlike the gal in my sister’s play, I definitely wouldn’t feel guilty that I hadn’t “earned” the money. Possessing that sort of luck would feel as valid to me as possessing the skill set to launch a tech start-up. In fact, I would consider the money hardearned, a sort of payment for hard knocks. I’d consider it a gift from God!
In the spirit of full disclosure I’ll admit now that I MAY have fantasized about a FEW things a megajackpot could buy in addition to my aforementioned humanitarian musings (but only a time or two).
I’ve played with the idea of purchasing houses around the globe, installing a house manager and livein masseur in each: on the Isle of Capri; in the Garden District of New Orleans; and maybe on the Northumberland Coast, why not?
But lately I’m thinking I’d probably just buy a (much) better house here, then travel widely in the time I have left rather than feeling tied down by real estate.
(Surely it’s wise having all these philosophical matters ironed out BEFORE one hits the jackpot.)
So yes, I do stay open to the infinitesimal possibility of winning the lottery even while harboring no expectations of doing so (but knowing I definitely won’t without a horse in the race!). But then I don’t expect or even want life’s events to happen in a particular way of my choosing. To live with Expectations is a closed system, rigid, and rife with disappointment, frustration, and perhaps even the ultimate waste of emotional energy – envy. I prefer living in a state of expectancy, open to all the serendipitous or even synchronous good happenings that MIGHT cross my path, winning the lottery being only one among countless.
But I promise, if I ever do win, I’ll throw you a bone!