How cool would it be to win a few million? First off, you’d say it was cool – very cool. All of a sudden, being catapulted into the ranks of the super-rich and successful sounds like it has a lot going for it. Being able to take that step-up in lifestyle looks like it simply doesn’t have a downside. But as we all know, real life is not quite like that.
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The question of success
Imagine you’re at a high rolling film premiere, surrounded by the great and the good. A famous and successful actress asks you what you do. What do you say? You have to ask yourself, in that sort of company, just how cool is it to have gotten so one-off lucky? Maybe that’s why so many of fictional treatments of TV and movie lottery winners are so consistently bitter-sweet. The thing about a dream is that it is just a dream. We can all wish away the day-to-day, and fantasise about hanging out with the brilliant and the beautiful, but we all know that whatever else it does, a big win at Lottoland won’t change who we are. It won’t change our character and it can’t wash away our past.
Dreams are for dreaming
That’s why we should remember to keep our dreams of lottery wins firmly in their place. As a fantasy it may suggest that the world will be instantly transformed into a wonderfully Disney-fied space where everything is perfect and no-one is ever unhappy. But that illusion is not something to build any serious hopes on. The fun of playing is in the playing – the business of winning is something different.
Doing good and having fun
Of course, a big win will take away a lot of stress and day-to-days hassle. It will give you the means to do the same for those closest to you. That is not something to be sniffed at. A big win will give you the power to do a lot of good in the world, just as it will provide the means to have a lot of fun.
But when all is said and done, you have to ask yourself, just what it says about you if you need a million in the bank to be able to impress anyone and to express who you really are. There are different levels of cool, and money simply cannot buy the most important of them.
