What I learnt today #8

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Today is sometimes referred to as 'hump day', used in the context of reaching the apex of the proverbial hill - a work week. The anticipatory descent into the weekend is cause for much excitement the world over. 

Where one side of the hill takes a vast amount of energy to climb, once over the hump, we glide down the other side with relative ease. We almost can feel our body begin to exhale and almost feel the energy expended return. 

Today is also the day that our lottery plus jackpot either goes to a very fortunate person, who is in all likeliness going to pee on his boss' desk in the morning, or back in the pot to fatten for the next week of hopeful millionaires. 

I’m not a gambling man, but after having lunch with a friend yesterday we walked right past a lotto booth and he wanted to buy a lotto ticket. He didn't have any cash so I bought two, one for him and one for me. I folded the ticket and placed it in my wallet just as I would a grocery bill or torn movie stub and told him I’d initiate legal action if he won and didn't give me half.

Upon my return to the office I had learnt that the jackpot for Wednesday night’s draw stood at a cool $11M. I instantly began to run interest rate calculations to see how much of a bum I could be by sitting on that money. Then my mind turned to the investment opportunities that can allow that money to grow. I found myself in a dream pipeline that led me to places I had never thought possible as a salaried employee. And in reality, that pipeline dumped me out right at my desk. There I was after all that planning of what I would do with $11M, sitting in from the work I had floated away from just minutes before.

My short lived (in my mind) life as a multi-millionaire today taught me the following:

·        I will NOT be returning to work if I won the lottery, however small that jackpot may be. I would take it as a sign from the universe that things are about to change. It would be my omen (reference from ‘The Alchemist’)

·        Thinking of the lottery as a way out of the rat race is a supremely glorious waste of time and incredibly self defeating. Sure it would be a great blessing, but there may be a dangerous side to its seductive powers of perceived potential. It reinforces the notion that the only way you can live that dream life you have planned is by some miracle which results in showering you with riches. That is only possible by some act of fate, and not through our own doing, can our wildest dreams be realised is a harmful mindset.

Have you ever found yourself waiting for the universe’s powers to grant you an opportunity to start your dream life?

The lottery draws tonight, and if you see a blog entry on Thursday, then I did not win.