As I stood in a long, cold line to buy tickets for last week’s 350-plus million-dollar lottery, I was thinking about why we participate willingly…nay, eagerly, in something that has such pitifully poor odds of success.
I mean, this isn’t an uncommon thing… (Both my, “thinking,” and my purchasing lottery tickets.) It was just that there were so many people doing it that day, now that the payoff seems astronomical.
I realized the ONE thing that the purchasing of a lottery ticket does, that very few things can offer: Between the time that you buy your ticket and the time the last ball has been called, you ARE a millionaire. You’re a winner! You have won the big prize… the ticket to easy street… all your fantasies are waiting to be lived! It’s almost like “Schrodinger’s cat;” as long as you don’t know that the numbers don’t match, you are as much a winner as any of the other millions of hopeful, desperate and mostly clueless players. How many things in life can offer you that type of elation?
I listened to folks talking about what they’d “do first” if they won. It was a singular type of catharsis, where complete strangers could speak freely about their hopes… some fears…and laugh about the whole process.
Guess what? I wasn’t one of the two winners for that lottery. I seriously doubt that millions of Americans were crushed, or even surprised, when they didn’t win. I’m actually pretty sure that the most surprised people where the ticket holders from Idaho and Washington. Can you imagine that conversation?
“Seriously? You’re kidding, right? No Way! Come on… quit kidding around! OH MY GOD!!!!!”
I just hope that none of them were prone to anxiety or heart problems. Now THAT would truly suck; win the lottery and die from the shock. Hey, that could be a great motivational slogan for exercise: “When you finally win that big prize, you want to be healthy enough to take the shock, don’t you?”
Oh well, like I said, I didn’t win…that time. This week’s lottery is “only” 32-million dollars. I suppose I could muster up a little excitement for that. After all… I did buy a ticket…
