What I learned from not winning the $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot
Playing the lottery doesn't have to be a waste of money.
The Powerball jackpot hit reached a frankly stupid $1.8 billion for the drawing this past Saturday night, which I did not win. Most people did not win. According to some research I did, the chances of winning the Powerball are 1 in 292.2 million. Which, to me, means any time the jackpot is over that amount, I should play it. This theory completely ignores the fact that the actual lump sum payment is about half of the jackpot amount, and also ignores taxes, and also since a ticket is $2 I should wait until the jackpot is double that amount, but whatever. A lot of people say that playing the lottery is about as good as lighting your money on fire, but I like to see it as spending $2 to kickstart my imagination.
For the few hours between purchasing my ticket and the official drawing, I wasn’t a billionaire, but I wasn’t not a billionaire. I was Schrodinger’s billionaire, both billionaire and not, a Prince and a Pauper, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. My mind imagined all the things I’d do (and things I would never do again) with my newfound riches.
You can learn a lot about yourself from your daydreams. Here’s what I thought about in my time as a hypothetical rich person, and what I think it tells me about myself.
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