![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thumbs.gfycat.com\/AromaticCarelessBackswimmer-small.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In my life, I\u2019ve had a lot of notoriously bad Januarys; this is not to say that I actually do believe that it\u2019s not just coincidence, and that all Januarys are evil, but I\u2019d also be lying if I didn\u2019t say that I often times don\u2019t enter each new year without a slightly more feeling of caution and reluctance.<\/span><\/p>\n Honestly lately, I\u2019ve been feeling a tad blue because I\u2019m unhappy with my career, which leads to a downward mental spiral of wondering what I\u2019m doing with my life.\u00a0 There\u2019s plenty of good, not a tremendous amount of bad, but it\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway lately I\u2019ve 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.\u00a0 And what I\u2019d do if I came across that kind of money.*<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *Yes, I\u2019m aware that lump sum, taxes and other initial variables would reduce a number like that to \u201cjust\u201d something like $150M, but that\u2019s still a whole lot of life-changing fuck-you monies<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Out of curiosity, I polled my friends according to Facebook on what\u00a0the first<\/em>\u00a0thing they would do, if they were to suddenly come into $10M+.\u00a0 Despite the fact that many of them couldn\u2019t give just one definitive \u201cfirst thing\u201d answer, the vast majority of them started with the line of paying debts.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s 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\u2019t know if I\u2019d want that to be my very first thing, not that there\u2019s anything wrong with wanting to be free and clear henceforth.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly, if I won the lottery, first things first, I sure as shit wouldn\u2019t brog about it, at least not immediately.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t tell many people, if any at all, immediately, because I have to imagine that there\u2019s a very surreal period of time upon discovery, that your life is going to forever be changing, very permanently.<\/span><\/p>\n From what I understand, there\u2019s 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 \u201cgood \u2018ol\u201d Uncle Sam.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n One the relative coast is clear, and the government has taken their chunks of my winnings, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m the type to go crazy with my winnings suddenly; I\u2019m pretty fiscally conservative (cheap) for the most part, and I\u2019d like to think that I\u2019d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n After securing my finances, I think I\u2019d first, pay off my house, so that I can basically unload it, so that I could move somewhere else.\u00a0 \u201cSomewhere,\u201d when you\u2019re suddenly rich expands its boundaries tremendously, but at least from the onset, I\u2019d probably stick around in Atlanta, until I\u2019ve really figured out what I want to do with my life.\u00a0 If I had any other job than my current one, I\u2019d possibly contemplate continuing to work, simply out of fact that I\u2019m 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Getting back to the \u201cmundane\u201d concept of alleviating debt, I\u2019d 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.\u00a0 Move my dad closer to his family, move my mom into a nicer place closer to her\u2019s, and buy all sorts of superficial things that Koreans are notorious for wanting.<\/span><\/p>\n But then I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do once all the initial hurdles are traversed, and suddenly it\u2019s me, my money, and nothing else.\u00a0 By this point, I guess I\u2019d 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\u2019t necessarily have to work a job any more.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, I\u2019d 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.\u00a0 Finish up seeing baseball parks, go check out minor league parks, and eat all the regional and local food along the way.\u00a0 Visit cities I\u2019d never visited before, regardless of the presence of baseball, so that I could eat more food and see more sights.<\/span><\/p>\n And naturally, I\u2019d explore the world, with the financial variable no longer an issue.\u00a0 Sure, I\u2019d 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.\u00a0 Like, the places used in movies like\u00a0Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em>\u00a0that you have to Google to find out their true locations; those are the kinds of places I\u2019d rather go, than London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney or Rio.<\/span><\/p>\n Ultimately, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m much different than any other dreamer who wonders what they\u2019d do if they won the lottery.\u00a0 As long as I don\u2019t end up in a worse place than in which I started, I think I\u2019ll have done it right, but I think what I\u2019m really getting at is that it\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In my life, I\u2019ve had a lot of notoriously bad Januarys; this is not to say that I actually do believe that it\u2019s not just coincidence, and that all Januarys are evil, but I\u2019d also be lying if I didn\u2019t say that I often times don\u2019t enter each new year without a slightly more feeling … Continue reading If I won the lottery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,15],"class_list":["post-42066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-cashmoney","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42067,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42066\/revisions\/42067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}