It might be the best shot I have at becoming a billionaire and it certainly would make becoming a millionaire far easier than my current circumstances allow for.
All I need to do is buy a ticket for the Powerball lottery and win and in theory my life might be changed forever.
Won’t lie and say there isn’t a certain attraction in finding a way to secure my financial future and that of my children.
But in order to win you have to play and I almost never buy lottery tickets because I tend to focus on doing things where the odds are more favorable than what we find there.
Funny thing is that if you ask a selection of those who know me you’ll find people who say that I have always been the guy to shoot for the moon and a collection of those who will tell you that I only make bets I can win.
You can blame that contradiction upon life and the experiences I have had. Compare it to the kid’s game Chutes and Ladders and I’ll tell you I have climbed the ladders more times than I have been on the chutes.
Those are good numbers, but only until you look more closely and recognize that the one chute I rode down was awfully long.
If you want to gain some insight into my personal wisdom or madness ask my parents to tell you about how when I was little I would sometimes bang my head against the ground.
They’ll tell you I did it when I was angry and that the knock against my noggin only made me angrier.
I won’t tell you I am proud of being dumb enough to hurt myself, but I am proud to say I didn’t let the fear of pain teach me to avoid situations in which I might encounter it.
Nor will I say that the toddler version of me figured out how to use that pain as effectively as the man has because it wouldn’t be true.
But who we once isn’t who we always are and the experiences of the past are those that inform my future.
Call that a fancy way of saying I figured out how to dance on the razor’s edge without fear of falling because I know what lies on the other side and if I slip I know how to get back up.
Your Comfort Zone Is Still Killing You
Flip back in time and read Your Comfort Zone Is Killing You and you’ll see it is where I acknowledged on paper something I had already internalized.
I am not interested in living a life based upon routine unless it is something that makes me feel alive and helps me provide for my family.
Don’t misunderstand that to mean I am only interested in extreme sports or doing things that make my heart race because that is not it either.
There can be great joy in the mundane parts and pieces of our lives.
What it means is that I opened my eyes and asked what I am doing with my life and if I am doing it in the places and with the people I want to be doing it.
It means that even though I love Los Angeles it might not always be home.
Hell, I left before and I might do so again.
It depends.
What Would You Do With All That Money?
Ask me why I say whether Los Angeles will remain my home and all tell you it is a mishmash of warm feelings and memories intermixed with finances and an interest in seeing what else is out there.
I love living in Texas, have nothing but warm feelings about it and know from experience it’s on the list of places I can call home.
Last night I lay in bed and thought about whether I want to buy a ticket for the Powerball and what I would do with all that money.
You might wonder why purchasing a ticket is even a question, especially when a $2 investment is all it takes to get in the game.
Well, part of me is curious about what happens if I take the current road I am on and see where it leads without that kind of financial windfall.
Part of me wonders what that kind of money would do to my family.
What kind of impact will it have on my children and their values?
I want to say the things we have taught them and the experiences they have had won’t be rocked by that kind of capital influx, but you never know.
What happens to me if I am put in a position where I don’t have to work on anything but what interests me?
Will I work as hard or harder than now?
Where would I live if I could live anywhere?
Would I choose to buy multiple homes in different cities so that I could spend time in the places I like best.
Those are good numbers, but only until you look more closely and recognize that...Click To TweetTime will answer many of those questions, if not all.
In the interim, I’ll keep walking my path and see where it leads and should you ask I’ll tell you I still agree with Emerson.
With the number so high, I think many of us are having some of those same thoughts. It’s easy to dream. I also wonder how it would impact me and I don’t just mean what I could buy but on an internal level. There’s no way it could not.
That internal level is what I wonder about, what happens when you have the financial ability to do almost anything.