I'm smart enough to know that the odds of hitting the major national lotteries are astronomical. I'm smart enough to know that the odds of hitting any lottery in my lifetime is virtually impossible. You would think that the fact that I've never won the lottery anytime I've played (and I mean I've never even won a single solitaire dollar) would be an obvious indicator that I should save my money and leave well enough alone. However, whenever I see the giant lotto jackpot billboard on my way from work, floating at over a half a billion dollars, the incitement is just too rich for me to ignore.
For the record, I do not have a gambling problem. In fact, I rarely gamble at all besides a few safe BetMGM wagers and playing a private, low-risk game of Texas Hold'em with friends once every few months. I'm not even a big risk-taker, with all of my major life decisions made after days of careful calculations and considerations.
With that being said, I'm starting to believe that my unwillingness to take major risks is the reason I haven't reached the level of success I wish to have. The fear of taking a gamble and failing is just too strong. But, as I get older, I realize that my time on Earth is dwindling away and I don't want to live the rest of my life wondering 'what if'. So lately I've been making the conscious decision to override my logic and splurge reckless amounts of money to try to beat the 1 and 400,000,000 lottery odds.
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Make no mistake about it, my decision to waste resources that can be used for gasoline and groceries on worthless strips of paper with randomly generated numbers is out of desperation, not entertainment. My monthly earnings minus my monthly expenses doesn't leave me with a lot of disposable income to work with. I'm caught in this endless cycle of working just so I can have enough to go to work. You would think that the smart thing to do is to not waste money on a fantasy outcome, right? But the dream of being that one lucky guy, that one lucky day, when all of my financial burdens are relieved overnight by some random lucky numbers swells in my imagination so aggressively, I try to superstitiously will it into existence.
We've all been there, right? Every time you buy your ticket, you start to fantasize about how you're going to spend your millions. You fully understand that you're not taking home the entire jackpot, but the lump some you do take home is well over enough. You strategize about how you'll build your new home and sort out where your game room, home gym, indoor pool and 10 car garage will be situated. And then you fool yourself into thinking that you're not going to blow it all doing dumb stuff, but you're actually going to spend your winnings wisely and modestly (sure you are).
The imagination of your new post-lotto life becomes so vivid that you trick yourself into thinking it can actually happen! There you are, in front of the TV, prepared to hold in your excitement once your numbers are pulled. Only for reality to crush your heart as soon as the first number is drawn. And now you feel stupid because that money you spent on your tickets would've been just enough to patch that slow leak in your front tire.
You get over the silliness of believing that you can hit the lottery...until that one day you hear the news that some dude in a town you've never heard of actually got lucky and took all the money that could've been yours.
Oh well... better luck next time.
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