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Winning The Lottery

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What if you won the lottery? What if the life you actually have looked to others like you already had won the lottery. Les Bloch has this Perspective.

You just won. You did. The big one, the one everyone has been talking about. The lottery. All the money you could ever dream of.

So now what? What are you going to do? Okay, first you’re going to pay off your kids’ mortgage, or your Dad’s or Mom’s or sister’s mortgage, or your brother, who’s renting. You’ll buy him a house on the beach like he always wanted. Pay the entire thing off with cash. And that car, the Lamborghini with the gull wings. That’ll turn some heads. Your neighbor, the one you can’t stand, you’ll pay off her mortgage too, just to mess with her mind.

Okay, that’s done. Now, travel. Go everywhere you wanted to go, places you never dreamed of. Some small island in the Pacific. Wait a minute: You could just buy an island. You’ve got enough money to figure it out.

Slow down, you’ve got the rest of your life to be rich. Everything looks different. Everything is free. I mean, everything. Anything you want is yours. It’s exhilarating but a little odd. Because everything you wanted is now yours for the taking. And now you start to question, what do I want? Do I really like cars that much?

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Stop.

You did not win. Out of all the people and all the chances, you got the one ticket that didn’t win. Everyone else, everyone around you is rich. They drive beautiful cars, live in spectacular homes, go on vacations to Napa and the Canary Islands. Go to the ballgame and buy $10 beers. You sleep on the street. You can’t buy a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread is $3, but it might as well be $100, a thousand. Because you have nothing. You got the one ticket, the one ticket that’s worth nothing.

What would it take for the people who won the lottery to help you? If you ask them would they buy you some bread? If you ask them would they help you stay warm? If you ask them would they build you a house?

With a Perspective, I’m Les Bloch.

Les Bloch is a musician, writer and project manager in the East Bay.

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