Lottery Fever's Life Lessons

Lottery Fever’s Life Lessons

Written by the Panhandling Philosopher

 

 

            Last week, people who had seldom played the lottery heard the news of a staggering jackpot in excess of $500 million dollars. By Sunday it was near $900 million dollars. No one won the jackpot, so the pot is growing this week. By the time of the drawing it is expected to be around $1.3 billion dollars. As I have watched Lottery fever, and confession to be made, bought a ticket I have mulled over the phenomenon of lottery fever and have decided there are some lessons to be learned as we think over the lottery.

            We could fix on whether a lottery is actually a good practice. It is a way for governments to bypass the legislative process of raising revenues from fairly and equitably distributed taxation to spend on the shared public sector investments that we possess as a people in common. Most states involved in the Powerball lottery earmark the funds towards education. But then legislators adjust the state budgets so that school budgets are treated as taken care of by the lottery. In the end, many states do not solve their financial shortfalls through the lottery schemes, and the lottery becomes a sort of tax on the poor who spend more in the hopes of becoming rich quick than the rest of us. That would be worth an entire essay to consider. But let us look at some other lessons the lottery and the accompanying lottery fever can teach us.

            One of the first lessons that came to mind as I have watched and played along in lottery fever is how for a moment we think of the possibilities of things we would do if questions of money and jobs no longer determined our course of everyday action. People imagined winning the lottery and traveling. A lot of people imagine changing careers to something they would like to do rather than feel they have to do. Steve Martin joked that if he won the lottery he would use it to underwrite his banjo career. Quite a few people thought if they won the lottery they would contribute a large sum of money to good causes. I think the “what would I do if I won” dreams are themselves important lessons to be considered as we experience lottery fever. For some of us, the lottery has allowed us to think about dreams and aspirations within ourselves that we have learned to simply say “no, I have to be practical, there are bills to pay.” Does that perhaps tell us we aren’t facing life in perhaps the most positive way?

            Most of us will never win the Powerball lottery. Life goes on. For most of us, we realize that life hasn’t been too bad. We usually get the bills paid. We don’t always like getting up to go to work, but we are grateful for our jobs. We enjoy most of the people at our jobs much of the time. Most of us imagine life could be a lot worse. But these dreams and aspirations and desires – have we paid too little attention to them? Sometimes yes. But here is the point. The lottery opened our souls to dreams that some of us have buried beneath the necessities of earning a living. We have never taken that special trip anywhere. We haven’t pursued a hobby or an alternative vocation we have imagined ourselves doing. We’ve felt that if we could we’d love to make a difference by giving more money to a charity or a cause. But what can we do if we can only afford $5 on a tight budget? We take our dreams and file them away until they have no real place in our lives or how we prioritize our lives. Then the lottery jackpot reaches $1 billion dollars and we begin thinking of what we would do if we won. Perhaps our greater need is to think of what we will do with these dreams if we don’t win.

            The lottery teaches us that small contributions add up when they get focused. How much does a Powerball lottery ticket cost? It costs two dollars per chance. Do you understand what that means? It means that millions of people contributing $2 per chance created a fund worth more than a billion dollars. Do you see the implications of that for your desire to contribute to the good of your community? We imagine we can’t make a difference if all we can give is $5. Yet $2 contributions added up in the lottery until some person or group of persons will split a $ 1 billion jackpot. Think how people of a poor neighborhood could transform the look of their neighborhood with small contributions going towards shared neighborhood beautification. Think of how groups of us could make changes in the world by focusing our $2 and $5 contributions to a good cause. The lottery teaches us that small contributions can add up.

            It isn’t just about money. A financial adviser once said, “I am asked all the time by people how I should invest my money to take care of my future?” He then said – “I am never asked how I should invest my take so as to be better prepared to take care of my future.” Money and time is what we invest into life to make of it what we will. The lottery in a strange way tells us that every minute and every dollar matters. It matters for the person who wins, and it especially matters for the rest of us who don’t win.

            Think about one thing in life you want to spend time and perhaps money on to pursue a dream, especially those dreams of contributing to the good of your community or those in need. Feel free to share your ideas and dreams with the rest of us reading this blog. I will try to follow up on some thoughts that have been percolating in my soul.