Happiness is a Powerball Jackpot
I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money ~ Pablo Picasso
This week’s Powerball jackpot is 1.5 billion dollars as I write this, the worlds largest ever lottery jackpot. Yes I have tickets and yes I’m good at math. I completely understand the odds of a single ticket winning is 1 in 292.2 million, I know that I have a hugely better chance of being struck by lightning. But what I paid for is not a realistic chance of winning, the fact is someone will eventually and it’s utterly unlikely to be me. When I normally play the lottery I play the fantasy 5 games that have long, (but if you’re going to win huge money the odds will always be long), but better odds of winning. I figure it’s worth $2 a week to try to win a few hundred thousand. Besides, no matter what people say, that $100 a year properly invested is not likely to make much of an impact on my finances.
No, what I’m paying for with my Powerball tickets is the opportunity to fantasize for a few days. Sure, I can sit around all day long without a ticket and dream of ways of spending that money. However, having even just one ticket in my pocket makes that fantasy actually possible and that ups the ante on the fantasy and makes it that much more enjoyable. I mean you can play poker all day long with peanuts as a stake but the game is infinitely more fun even at just a penny ante level. It’s the same principle at work here.
So if I win, no I won’t be going back to work. Yes, I’ll still be doing the Ministry of Happiness and writing. I’ll get to do a lot more adventure travel and travel in general. I’d move toward a life of travel and writing, the same thing I’d do if I could make an equivalent living from writing instead of being an educational administrator.
The beauty of the big money however is that I’d have a house on the ocean. A really nice cabin in the mountains to go with it. I’d be a bit decadent for sure, I think we all would. But I’d also take care of all of my nieces and nephews educationally, I’d surprise some good friends with some great gifts. I’d bless a few charities with some significant help. I’d have really good season tickets to the Steelers.
So great, the Powerball ticket allows you to do a bunch of frivolous daydreaming, so what? Well, positive day dreams are fun, they make us happy and that by itself would be worth the $2 ticket but there’s a bigger reason this can be important to your happiness. You see your daydreams tell you something important. Those what if daydreams are showing you what you love, what you want, what you are passionate about.
In mine, I’d become a full-time travel writer, well that’s what I’ve been gradually working toward for the last few years. I may not get there until I have enough retirement set up in my current gig. But this says I’m passionate about writing and travel. I hope you know those things about yourself already, but if you don’t, this just might be a way to figure them out. And I’m sorry in advance for suggesting the idea, you see when you do this, you might leave out some people and things that you feel should be important, that’s telling you something as well. Below are a couple of links on how daydreams and happiness intersect.
Creativity, Happiness & Daydreaming
TED talks – Surprising effects of a wandering mind
So drop $2, daydream away and have a happy day and maybe you’ll even hit the jackpot and have a very happy day my friends. Besides, if you’re suddenly a billionaire, you can become Batman! ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 
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