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Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Relative Lottery


Lady Luck's balls


This past week a 73 year-old man and his wife won twenty-five million pounds in the U.K. Lottery. I´m happy for them but why couldn’t they have won that when they were twenty-five? He said that they have no intention of letting it change their lives in any way, which leaves me wondering why they played in the first place.

In these times of economic crisis to win a lot of money must surely have even more significance than normal. At least for these two people they need never have to worry again about paying their bills or outliving their money. Now they only have to worry about losing interest and capital loss as the world around them goes to hell in a handbasket.

Can you win millions of any currency and not be affected by it to the extent that you continue to live your life the old way? Apparently, the man has a gardening allotment in a community of DIY gardeners, and after discovering his good fortune on Saturday he still went to his allotment on Sunday, as usual, so perhaps he has a bit of a chance.

I was thinking of myself under similar circumstances. Having received the news the question would be: would I retire instantly? Well, I’m already retired. Would I buy another car? I already have two, and my wife has one. Furthermore, one of my cars is a Jaguar XJ6 Sovereign. How many bleeding cars do I need? Would I open a business? Why? For Heaven’s sake, I’m already retired. Would I buy another house? I already have two.
Relatively speaking, I’m already living the life of a lottery winner. Everything is relative, and a life without too many worries is a very good thing indeed.

How would I allow that much money to change my life? Firstly, my wife could hang up her gloves and become one of the ladies who lunch. Secondly, we would no doubt buy a dream house somewhere in the world, although we do love our present home. There are some ways in which it could be improved, mainly by getting rid of some of our horrible neighbours from hell.

I would love to have the freedom from worry about future income, but when you suddenly come into that type of money you take on a different form of money worry and stress.

This is an interesting exercise for me because the facts are that my life is just lovely as it is. Perhaps it could use just a little more of a cushion but should I win big on the lottery it will be for other peoples benefit. Firstly, my son could be given a really great start in life with some form of career and creature comforts. Only problem is that he insists on his own independence and doing things his own way.

Both my mature daughters are doing well, although I’m sure they wouldn’t mind having a bit of a cushion to fall back on. My grandchildren, and my great granddaughter would have a better shot at a future if their grand dad had some extra bucks to lay on them, and that would be good. My sisters and brothers would be up high on my list of people with whom to share my good fortune with. After that, I have a whole village in Cameroon called Gouria to whom I am dedicated in improving their lot in life, so I wouldn’t have to look very far for things to finance.

Well, I seem to have the perfect profile of someone who deserves to win the lottery in a very big way. So, I’ll just keep on playing and we’ll just have to wait and see what comes of that.

Wish me luck!

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael