Winning the lottery
Would you take the money if you won like 1 billion?
Honestly, I probably would but also not because I can imagine that it will make me depressed. On one hand, I now have more money than I ever will have if I had to earn it myself. On the other hand, I will never have the opportunity to earn that much money again. Sure I can give it all away, but that is a very dumb move if you ask me. I'd rather not win it in the first place. Because once you won it you really are in some weird way bound to take it. It's basically forced upon you.
Sure there are other things in life that bring you joy and fulfillment and you shouldn't tie the amount of money you make too tightly to your self worth. But I think it is very gratifying to know that you actually managed to make that much money on your own. You will never really be able to if you win the lottery. You will completely miss out on the human experience of making a lot of money.
Thoughts?
tldr: don't play the lottery because you might win it and ruin your life
Comments (5)
A2D checking in. If I won the lottery, I'd flag off to some island and just live it out (anyone else noticing my theme here?). That's without thinking about things like FOREX rates on said supposed $1b. But it'd still be more than enough to fuck right off. Keep it quiet of course. Do one of those fun things like where winners wear a costume to collect their winnings. Mine would be a Scream costume for anyone wondering (psyche! I wouldn't tell the internet what it'd be). Fund a trust to keep it that way because we know all the stories about people coming out of the woodwork with their hand out. Or even use it to make charitable contributions in the meantime since I'm a soldier not a monster (Great Die Hard quote, look it up). Once I click check out on this planet, let it go to some actual charitable cause since my only children are of the four legged variety right now. Achieve my goal of having a purpose of not having to have a purpose for someone else. Not pulling some stunts like that guy back in PA who won it all and then wasted it in less than a year.
Edit: I'm not ruthless either, don't get me wrong. Immediate family? And I mean immediate with the farthest going out to paying off an uncle's credit card or some such. Taken care of. Closest friends who've ridden this roller coaster with me and are the definition of ride or die? Taken care of in the same way. But that's the length of it. If anyone wanted to use that freedom to come hang out with me afterwards that's cool. But I still ain't paying for your dinner if you did visit. Like I said, I'm a soldier not a monster. Some second cousin I speak to maybe twice a year at most or some grade school friend I haven't talked to in over a decade? Go pull a Little Nicky pineapple trick (look it up).
If I won $1B, I'd probably keep doing the same thing I'm doing now for 6mo to contemplate next steps slowly.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
To be realistic, the chances you'd make that amount of money are exceedingly slim. Say the $1BN you mention, if I run that through the powerball website for NY or any of the other calculators, that's above $600MM. How many founders even make that much once you consider dilutive investments?
I understand and agree that making that amount through your own efforts sounds way more exciting ($600MM today through lottery or $600MM in 10 years building a business, I'd probably take the latter and be far happier in my mid 30s) but it sounds more like you're comparing having that amount of money to the possibility of one day maybe earning that money somehow...
At the end of the day, at least you'd be living a life of luxury, and you'd have more than enough capital to take the risk of starting and investing in businesses to your heart's content.
Winning the lottery ruins a lot of people's lives because they don't know how to handle money...
I would take the lump sum and invest it with a UHNW advisor... principal is not to be touched even by kids/grandkids, they have educations paid for but no withdrawing tens of millions or not working. Set up distributions for .5-1% per annum - $6M+ per year is still absolute freedom. Forget about the rest of the money and let it grow generational wealth
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