Much has changed in the several months since my last “weekly” post. I started a new job – yeah! I moved into a new house – yeah! I made a special new friend – yeah! I lost a dear family member – so sad I can hardly bear it.
Change is the way of life. Good and bad. Ups and downs. Joys and sorrows. It is not wise to think what is now, will be always. For all it is a cliché it is yet truth that the only thing that stays the same is change.
So with lotterying, my-always-the-same losing may change to winning. It could happen. This week the jack pot is especially large. I have been having fun with my friends discussing all the amazing things we would do if we won. One conversation quickly changed (there’s that word!) to the intriguing thought of how would any of us keep the BIG WIN from ruining us. How would we keep it from changing us?
Can any of us normal people who live in the world of nickels and dimes comprehend that it can be a bad thing to live in a world of millions and millions of dollars? The down payment on my new house lived in a savings account for a while. “There’s enough for another square foot” I would tell myself each time I read the bank statement. In the world of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Jeff Bazos, those little amounts would be lint in the bottom of their pockets. But for me, they were exciting. Those little amounts were truly life-changing.
But would the BIG WIN really be a good change? Would my friendships survive if I could pay for every lunch, buy every treat, foot every expense, but my friends couldn’t? Would trust survive if I became the favorite cousin or aunt or in-law to people who before barely knew I existed?
And the most important question – would my character survive if my life changed so I didn’t have to do a single thing ever again? If, as a friend described the ultimate lazy life, I could sit around in fuzzy slippers eating chocolate bonbons?
My new job did not change my character. My new house did not change my character. I hope I would cling to the idea that the BIG WIN would not change me. I know that how I would use the money would reveal my true character. I would hope that the character I would reveal then would be the character I reveal now. In all the changes that will happen, BIG WIN or not, I would hope it would not be my true wealth, my character.