What I learned from not winning the $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot
Playing the lottery doesn't have to be a waste of money.
The losing numbers can be the winning numbers.
The Powerball jackpot hit reached a frankly stupid $1.8 billion for the drawing last Saturday night, which I did not win. Most people did not win. According to some research I did, the chances of winning the Powerball are 1 in 292.2 million. Which, to me, means any time the jackpot is over that amount, I should play it. This theory completely ignores the fact that the actual lump sum payment is about half of the jackpot amount, and also ignores taxes, and also since a ticket is $2 I should wait until the jackpot is double that amount, but whatever. A lot of people say that playing the lottery is about as good as lighting your money on fire, but I like to see it as spending $2 to kickstart my imagination.
For the few hours between purchasing my ticket and the official drawing, I wasn’t a billionaire, but I wasn’t not a billionaire. I was Schrodinger’s billionaire, both billionaire and not, a Prince and a Pauper, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. My mind imagined all the things I’d do (and things I would never do again) with my newfound riches.
You can learn a lot about yourself from your daydreams. Here’s what I thought about in my time as a hypothetical rich person, and what I think it tells me about myself.
I fantasized about the home gym I’d create in my garage and learned I need to dream bigger. A gym in a garage? For a billionaire? Come on, man! Dream about a house that has enough rooms where you don’t need to compromise your rooms. What’s next, a closet office? A sink for a toilet? Your house can have a room that’s supposed to be a gym for the gym, and the garage can fulfill its actual purpose - being full of refrigerators for beer.
I thought about what kind of charities I’d give money to. It turns out, it’s whatever charities my wife would want to give money to. I don’t want to be one of those “my wife makes me a better person” guys, but I don’t even know any charities. Salvation Army? Is that one? It’s either a charity or a bunch of people who will go to war with you if you don’t accept Jesus as your own personal lord and savior. Or maybe both?
For about one whole minute, I figured I’d just keep driving the car I have until it died because I see a car as a tool just to get from one place to another and not as a luxury item. Then, I learned that I totally only say that because I don’t have luxury car money at this time. Whenever I’m in a really nice car, through some accident, I’m like “oh, I get it” and then my brain somehow magically forgets how nice it is to have a smooth ride and a working radio when I’m forced to go back to getting from one place to another in my wife’s 2008 Honda Civic.
I’d for sure give money to friends and family but I also learned I might make them Shark Tank-style pitch me on what they need it for. That would be fun. “Hello, brother, I’m here to ask you for $300,000 so that I can buy the biggest house in all of Central Pennsylvania and in exchange will give you the satisfaction of knowing that you moved your nieces into a better school district.” I’m interested, but I’m going to counter-offer and ask that you also agree to leave Central PA multiple times a year to meet me in real cities to expose them to culture that is not coal-based. If you do this I’ll also throw in paying for their college education.
I wondered if newfound riches would turn me into an asshole. And I learned - all money makes you an asshole. That’s what money is for. You throw it at people to make them do something you don’t want to do. I’m not rich right now, but the money I do have, I use it to be an asshole. When I’m hungry, and I don’t want to farm, or forage, or hunt and kill my own food, I go into a Chipotle and I slap a $10 bill down on the counter and I say, “make me a burrito!” Not in those words, exactly, but that’s the sentiment. Sometimes I get food delivered. I make a human person bring me my food while I sit on my ass in my house and eat the food I have inside my house while I wait for more food to arrive. What an asshole thing to do.
I did some preliminary research on how to set up a really nice podcast studio and then I realized that if I was crazy rich I wouldn’t have to create content to compete in an attention-based economy anymore. This thought alone filled me with so much relief I fell into a deep peaceful sleep and missed the Powerball drawing, only to awake and learn that I must continue on my quest for clicks.
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