Million Dollar Dreams

I read a story over the last year by Stuart McLean. McLean hosts the Vinyl Café on CBC Radio, and he has also written a collection of books under the same name detailing the life stories of one particular family headed by Dave and Morley, and they have two children; Sam and Stephanie.

The Extreme Vinyl Café is the name of this particular book, and “The Winning Lottery Ticket” is the story I speak of. This story is about the grandfather of Stephanie’s boyfriend, who keeps an unscratched lottery ticket, and always claims it to be “a winning ticket”. He would always ask his family: “Imagine. A million dollars. What would you do with a million dollars?” And then when whoever it was he was asking told him, he would listen carefully, and then respond: “Are you sure that’s what you would do? Is that your heart’s desire? And then the process would start all over again.” Ever since I read that story, I have put some thought into answering that grandfather’s question; what would I do if I won the lottery?

Like I do about almost everything, I started to research and analyze. And I tried to figure out what I would do with my money Logically. A very good article I read online explained things very well. It asked you, the reader, to think about the work you want to be doing, and the money you realistically think you would earn over your career. Then multiply that by the duration of your career.

I think my amount translated into something like $2.1M.
Okay! So, THAT’S my cap. That’s as much as I’d ever want to win. Having this cap allows you to stay grounded, envisioning your goals in a lifestyle that you are already working towards, with the added bonus of the lottery helping you get there right away.

Let’s get realistic about this here, I’m never going to win $2.1M. So Logically, let’s not even imagine that. 1M dollars! I’m going to win 1M dollars! What am I going to do with that? What would YOU do with $1M?

For me, that question was easy. First, I would be giving 10% of it away to charities; there are several different ones that have touched my life over the years, either directly or through the lives of family and friends. I would divide the money up, not send it to only one, and not all at once. But that’s only some of the money anyway!

I would pay off my Mother’s mortgage. I would give money to my sister, my Family, and my friends.

There is a reason I would do these things. I believe we all have so many connections, so many people to whom we owe our gratitude, and our time. We cannot begin to know in our lifetime how many people gave so many hours of their time to help out each and every one of us.

I am sure that we all hear our friends and family talk about different of their dreams, and that I’m sure we’d love to be able to help them out. But over time, we kind of turn ourselves off of that, because we know there’s “nothing we can do” and that’s just life. But there are so many ways we could help each other out, and a huge part of the joy of winning the lottery is being able to share it, and to give of yourself, and doing this becomes part of that dream!

So, after I have shared with others, what am I left with? About half my winnings. Okay! I would use the rest of it to buy a condo for myself, I would get a cat, use a room in my new condo for woodworking projects, and that’s about it.

The more I thought about winning that million dollars, and what I would do with it, the more I thought about the time it would buy me, and how I would invest that time into making myself a better person. I would work with a career coach, spend more time volunteering, take some courses on gourmet cooking and I’d even improve my communication skills!

Then I realized that this dream is not about winning the money … although I do admit, that would be nice … really, nice! Okay, so this dream is – at least in part – about winning the money!

*But before I get there, it’s about creating goals for the future that can only be attained by having that money, and then, in place of my winnings, figuring out what I can do to get myself towards those goals without having that spare cash. This comes in the form of helping others out in their lives, achieving personal and financial goals, and becoming a better person.

Who knows, WHEN I win this one million dollars, I will at least have … well … believed in this dream, & worked towards it; that silly little dream that’s just for fun. I will have let myself have a “heart’s desire”, and be a much better person for it.

After all, “Money? Well, money can cause no end of problems. It’s far better to stick with dreams.”