Jackpot dreams!!!

With the jackpot swelling to US$550 million Friday night, the lotto fever has been catching up almost everyone. Before you go any further, one needs to understand that the probability of winning the jackpot has slimmed now. Previously it was 1 in 176 million but now it's 1 in 259 million. That's why you see these many big jackpots building up frequently. If you are wondering how they increase the odds or who are not familiar with the lotto, basically you choose 5 numbers and one mega number. The numbers were selected from 1 to 56. But now they widened that margin ranging from 1 to 75. My colleague would say, it is possible that you may die from a plane crash than winning a jackpot.. why waste your money... save your money. He hated people playing lotto. He thinks so low and cheap of them. I never told him that I buy lotto tickets when it crosses US$100m. Sorry Nirave I hope you ain't reading this!

And if you are planning to come up with an algorithm and invest a few millions to get the jackpot.. guess what.. lottery authority carefully monitors it and you can be disqualified!

Alright.. alright.. let's imagine that you've got the $550 million jackpot.. what you gonna do with that? Finish off  your credit card bills, buy a new home, new car(s), entire new wardrobe, new furniture, new gadgets, home theater, swimming pool, indoor basketball, see Miley cyrus twerking someone, watch your favorite stars (like Selena Gomez) falling off stage while performing (that's a real chance than winning a lotto :) ),  go to live football, baseball, or cricket games, etc etc. Or may be you pull up your bucket list do one by one and add new things to the list, now that you could afford it!

My dear friend Vivek and I would often have this discussion... what are we gonna do, if we ever win it. He and I have very good similar thoughts.. we would buy a 18 wheeler truck that has sleeping room and drive cross country (not for free). He would drive 8 hours and I would drive the next 8 hours and then 8 hours of absolute rest. We both love driving and talking about life, take a topic, discuss for and against, fight each others views and finally never conclude what's right or wrong. The only thing we always agreed is to disagree each other views but respect them and move on!

With all the money that you have now, how much of it can you really spend? May be ten million? Or at the max, I can think of spending 25 million. After that what are you going to do with the rest of the money? Few years back, we had a similar argument on FB and I was saying that I would be able to spend all of it, given a chance. Now that I have lesser hair than before, I admit I was wrong, Ranga! What money can't really buy you is happiness, love and experience in life. What do I mean by that? What if your loved ones isn't able to cope up with studies or have serious illness? Something that money can't buy. With money I think you can buy happiness for temporary period. To sustain it one has to start appreciate, understand and live the life. Money is only a tool to success in life.

Finally, jackpot is a curse. A sudden change in life style with unimaginable amount of money can ruin one's life. There's a study on the jackpot winners and it had documented that majority of the winners haven't had a successful life. Just like professional ball players (Gilbert Arenas, Mike Tyson, Scott Pippen to name a few) lotto jackpot winners couldn't lead a successful life. Dream big, achieve your goals and gradually climb up the financial ladder!