I have been travelling quite a bit so haven’t been able to get to PLC. I also haven’t been paying much attention to the lottery results. After all, why should I? I’m not going to win anything, so why bother.
But I do have this project to finish, and I am home so today I am back on the job at hand. I bought a ticket, came home and looked up the amount I wasn’t going to win.
1.6 billion dollars.
I.6 billion dollars.
I have to say it one more time – 1.6 billion dollars.
Paid out over 29 years that works out to $151,157.29 a day.
One hundred fifty one thousand, one hundred fifty seven dollars and twenty-nine cents each and every day -each and every day for 29 years.
My reaction was weariness. I kid you not, the thought of having $151,157.29 to spend every day made me tired.
The weariness was like a slap in the face. The thought of that much money to spend each day make my heart heavy. I actually slumped down and my breathing became labored.
I imagined waking up each morning and saying, “I have $151,157.29 to spend today. And I can spend each and every penny because tomorrow I will have another $151,157.29 to spend.”
I imagined not having to do a single solitary thing and that much money just appears in my life. I could do anything I want – money will be there. I can go anywhere I want – the money will show up. I can spend the whole day eating chocolate bonbons – there’s more money to come. I can cover my head with the blankets and not bother to get up – the money will still roll in.
No matter what I do or don’t do, where I go or don’t go, what I say or don’t say – I don’t have to lift a finger, I don’t have to accomplish a single thing, I don’t have to do anything worthwhile – I just know each night before I sleep I had $151,157.29 at my disposal that day. Each morning when I wake, I have another $151,157.29.
It sounds almost like hell.
Now, I will be honest, it is a hell I wouldn’t mind visiting. It is a hell I am sure I could get accustomed to living in.
And that is the danger of hell – it is very, very attractive. We have to watch out for hell, because it is often disguised as something else, like pleasure or power or self-satisfaction, or self-righteousness.
But that is a subject for another blog. The point of this blog is that the weariness of having $151,157.29 each day came as such a surprise. I never equated having an unending income stream with the same weariness I feel after the Thanksgiving Feast – that one too many bites of pumpkin pie destroy the joy of all the bites before it and diminish the very the joy of actually making the pie.
My mom had an expression for over-the-top stuff. She called it “too much muchness.”
I think $151,157.29 each day just might end up being too much muchness.
But again, in the spirit of being honest, I wouldn’t begrudge the chance to find out if that would really be true.