In my life, I’ve had a lot of notoriously bad Januarys; this is not to say that I actually do believe that it’s not just coincidence, and that all Januarys are evil, but I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that I often times don’t enter each new year without a slightly more feeling of caution and reluctance.
Honestly lately, I’ve been feeling a tad blue because I’m unhappy with my career, which leads to a downward mental spiral of wondering what I’m doing with my life. There’s plenty of good, not a tremendous amount of bad, but it’s like the little bit of negative somehow manages to overpower a lot of the good in my little bubble; perhaps that should be something I should strive to regulate, alleviate, and solve.
Anyway lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought about lotteries, and how the recent state of the Powerball lottery has hit the $400 million mark in terms of grand prize jackpot. And what I’d do if I came across that kind of money.*
*Yes, I’m aware that lump sum, taxes and other initial variables would reduce a number like that to “just” something like $150M, but that’s still a whole lot of life-changing fuck-you monies
Out of curiosity, I polled my friends according to Facebook on what the first thing they would do, if they were to suddenly come into $10M+. Despite the fact that many of them couldn’t give just one definitive “first thing” answer, the vast majority of them started with the line of paying debts. To me, that sounds kind of sad, that the state of so many people is reduced to living to work to pay off debts, to where their first thought of spending free money is to absolve themselves of debt. Yes, it’s certainly a nice thing, and definitely something that I would include in my top-3 or top-5 things if I won the lottery, but I don’t know if I’d want that to be my very first thing, not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to be free and clear henceforth.
Frankly, if I won the lottery, first things first, I sure as shit wouldn’t brog about it, at least not immediately. I wouldn’t tell many people, if any at all, immediately, because I have to imagine that there’s a very surreal period of time upon discovery, that your life is going to forever be changing, very permanently.
From what I understand, there’s a small window of time in which anonymity can be had, but eventually it opens up as public record, and so that media outlets can dig their claws into a story, and more importantly, so the IRS and government can take their mandated portions of the winnings for “good ‘ol” Uncle Sam.
I think the first thing I would do, aside from STFUing is trying to discreetly hire a strong attorney and accountant; basically anyone who can protect me, my winnings, and optimize how my money can most work for me, so that I can coast as long as possible.
One the relative coast is clear, and the government has taken their chunks of my winnings, I don’t think I’m the type to go crazy with my winnings suddenly; I’m pretty fiscally conservative (cheap) for the most part, and I’d like to think that I’d be able to reel in most impulses, or at least give them more thoughts than the average person who ends up on a TLC show about lottery winners who are broke again.
After securing my finances, I think I’d first, pay off my house, so that I can basically unload it, so that I could move somewhere else. “Somewhere,” when you’re suddenly rich expands its boundaries tremendously, but at least from the onset, I’d probably stick around in Atlanta, until I’ve really figured out what I want to do with my life. If I had any other job than my current one, I’d possibly contemplate continuing to work, simply out of fact that I’m terrible at having free time, and it would probably be best making money while killing time figuring out what I want to do, rather than not making money and wasting time not knowing what I want to do.
Getting back to the “mundane” concept of alleviating debt, I’d then do what I could to absolve my immediate family of whatever debts they had, mainly paying off homes and cars, so that they could coast with a little luxury for the rest of their lives. Move my dad closer to his family, move my mom into a nicer place closer to her’s, and buy all sorts of superficial things that Koreans are notorious for wanting.
But then I don’t know what I’d do once all the initial hurdles are traversed, and suddenly it’s me, my money, and nothing else. By this point, I guess I’d like to have had some sort of investment plan, or some sort of method of having my money make more money, so that I don’t necessarily have to work a job any more.
Sure, I’d probably get all sorts of spoils and superficial goods that would satiate recreational needs, like electronic toys and cars perhaps, but I think if I had mostly unlimited funds, and the freedom that comes along with having wealth, I would probably just travel all the time. Finish up seeing baseball parks, go check out minor league parks, and eat all the regional and local food along the way. Visit cities I’d never visited before, regardless of the presence of baseball, so that I could eat more food and see more sights.
And naturally, I’d explore the world, with the financial variable no longer an issue. Sure, I’d see major cities in Europe, Asia and parts of South America, but honestly, a litany of sites that are kind of off the beaten trail are what appeals to me the most. Like, the places used in movies like Lord of the Rings and The Count of Monte Cristo that you have to Google to find out their true locations; those are the kinds of places I’d rather go, than London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney or Rio.
Ultimately, I don’t think I’m much different than any other dreamer who wonders what they’d do if they won the lottery. As long as I don’t end up in a worse place than in which I started, I think I’ll have done it right, but I think what I’m really getting at is that it’s probably likely that I might just go out and purchase a few lottery tickets, and try and not be disappointed when I fail at a 1-in-300 million chance.
