The bug of winning the lottery never hit me until I was driving a truck in 2006. From 2006 until this year I would 'regularly' play the lottery. I have to use the air quotes there as I couldn't regularly afford to play the lottery.
I was reminded of those dreams this morning as I cleaned up my desk a bit and found an old lottery ticket. It was a winner, but only for $4. It was my last lottery ticket.
It got me thinking about dreams. No, not nocturnal images of me being a superhero saving a tied up damsel in distress or of being the damsel in distress being saved. No, I mean dreams of the future. Dreams of changing my present.
Back in 2006, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the present. The present, at that time, was my father dying of Cancer. Was me leaving a job that I loved and being unable to use that experience to get into a similar job. Was me becoming financially dependent on my parents again. Was me losing a close group of people that I hung out and worked with. It was a bad present and I wanted.... lusted after... a grand future. And more importantly I could see no way to get that future without some massive event changing it. Like the lottery.
I tried to put logic into my lottery dreams. Logic doesn't belong there, but it made me feel better to apply it in small doses anyway. I figured that if I won a million dollars, it would affect my present, but not really affect my future. Here's the logic behind that:
You don't win a million dollars in cash. You win a million dollars in twenty years of payments. If you take the cash payout, you get about half of it. Big deal right? A half of a million dollars is still many MANY pretty pennies. But then you have to pay taxes on that cashola. After paying taxes on this windfall, I would end up with about $350,000. I am not a greedy person by nature and get more joy out of sharing, so naturally I would want to share this with my family. The breakdown of the share would be half for me, while the other half would be split evenly between my parents, R and B (my brothers). That leaves me with around $175,000. I had a bunch of small bills to pay, but I also had my student loans at near $60,000. Pay everything off and I end up with about $100,000.
One hundred thousand dollars is nice. I certainly would never say 'no thank you' if someone offered it to me. But it's not future changing money. It's a nice car. It's a small house (in need of repair, in a bad neighborhood...). In other words, it's a nice present, but not a great future.
I don't remember all of my calculations, but I figured that if I won a $12,000,000 face value lottery, it would make a great future. At that point I could take the annual payouts and end up with over $100,000 for myself for the next 20 years. At that point I would be making more money than I could hope to make by working.
So as the minum payout of both the Mega Millions and the Powerball drawings were guaranteed to be that amount, I only played those. They each had two drawings a week leaving me with four days of hope.
But now? Now I don't need that dream. I don't' need to make a one in two hundred fifty nine million bet (yes, I just looked up the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot).
I've always had dreams, both big and small. I dreamed that I'd find love. I dreamed that I would raise intelligent polite children. I dreamed that I'd own a nice home. I dreamed that I'd have the ability to fix up that nice home. I dreamed of buying a new car. I dreamed of buying a new uber car. I dreamed that I would be respected by a wide audience. I dreamed that my photography would be loved. I dreamed that I would help heal people. I dreamed about owning an island. I dreamed about giving away millions of dollars to charity.
I still have most of those dreams. But when the present is good enough, as it is now, I don't have to focus on those dreams. If they come, great! If they don't... oh well.
I threw away that lottery ticket. Yes, I just threw away $4. But honestly, I don't even want to take the time necessary to walk into some party store, hand over the ticket and walk away with four dollar bills in my pocket. Before, when I was playing the lottery regularly, that four dollars would have gone right back into the lottery. Four more chances to win. Instead it goes into the trash along with dreaming big.
I want to dream small from now on. I don't' need to be rich as I'm financially secure. I don't need to have a new uber car as I have Fiona. I don't need to have an island as I have live in an island of familial love. I don't even need to dream about being happy.
Because I already am.
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