Wouldn’t it be nice to hit the lottery? One moment you go from buying a scratch off ticket with the last couple of dollars you have left and almost no thought in mind that you would ever win. Two weeks later you sit down in front of the television to check the numbers. You follow along each number with your finger as each number gets revealed. You got the first…dumb luck. You got the second…two’s not bad. The third hits…now your heart starts beating a little faster. The fourth is the same as the one on your ticket…this can’t be happening, this isn’t real. With one more number, your life will change instantaneously, and you have the means to live your dream life. Despite any downfalls in your life, despite any shortcomings and uncontrollable situations, this one number could change it all. One more number. The ball emerges from the little machine. You have a seven on your ticket, all you need is that seven. The ball rolls forward… Life changed.
As beautiful as that sounds, that is realistically and almost certainly never going to happen to you or I. Winning the lottery is a 1 in 292.2 million chance. Even getting just two numbers right seems like you might have a little luck on your side. Now it’s back to your regular old life. Rent still needs to be paid, food still needs to be bought, gas still needs to be filled. This fuckin sucks.
That’s not how I see it though. To me, life itself is the lottery, and every single person on this planet has already won. Now I’ll say that some got a better prize than others, but I’ll get back to that. Maybe it’s just my high ass introspective self writing right now, but it blows my mind every time I think about the chances of me being alive right here, right now. Let’s start big big picture here. The universe is how many billions of years old? Human existence is something like a day in the cosmic calendar. What are the odds that I came about exactly at this time, as a human being capable of consciousness, capable of questioning my consciousness? My existence in this universe could have been as a fuckin bacteria in the ocean a million years ago or as a frog or some shit. To be a human being in this exact time at this exact place is the jackpot, for real.
But let’s keep it real. Life is hard and very few people ever get the opportunities to live the life that they want to live. You and I have responsibilities that go way past existing. I never came from poverty, but I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination. And as I grow and become independent, I’m starting to feel the real life struggles of having to hold myself down and not relying on other people to provide for me. Shit gets stressful. And that’s just my situation. I understand that I have it EASY compared to a lot of people in this world. Some kids in this world hear gunshots before they go to bed every night. Some kids don’t have access to clean water or food.
I say that to say this. If you are reading this, you have already hit the lottery. Not because of me or this blog, but because you have the means to be reading this. I don’t want to make assumptions about your life, but I am willing to bet that you have food/water, clothes, and a roof of some sort over your head.
Now back to what I said earlier, not everybody wins as much as others. Some people are genuinely placed in awful, uncontrollable, inescapable situations. And it certainly is easy for me to say that they are still lucky to be alive while I am laying comfortable on my bed with my television on in the background and the heater on 74 degrees, just to my liking. Many people would read this and instantly tell me to fuck off, and I get it. Life isn’t fair, but not all prizes are the same. If you are able to have the human experience, you have hit the lottery. If you have your needs met, you have hit the jackpot. If you have your needs met and some, you have hit the powerball Mega Millions with no taxes on it.
The way you choose to live your life starts with perspective. I think once you realize exactly how lucky you are to be in this moment in time right here, right now, reading these strange symbols and making sense of it all, your life truly shifts into a higher place. I really can’t stress this enough, you and I have four leaf clovers in our DNA, son. To be here is nothing short of a miracle. So treat your life as the miracle that it is.
We only have one shot at this. I don’t know what happens after, but I do know that we have one chance at this life right now. You can either go through life sulking and feeling like your life is shitty or you can understand the richness of simply being alive. I’ve been on both sides of the ultimatum before. I promise that being grateful for simply being here is 292.2 million times more satisfying than the first.
And even though you didn’t get that seven, you still have the means to live your life the way you want to. It might be a little harder than getting millions of dollars in a day, that’s for damn sure. But just because you weren’t handed a tangible reward doesn’t make your lottery win any less meaningful. I’d say that it’s the exact opposite of that.
Shift your mindset to being grateful for being alive no matter what your current situation is right now. Be thankful for the good, be thankful for the bad, and be thankful for the ugly. Be grateful to wake up and go to that job you hate, because a lot of people don’t get the chance to make money at all. Appreciate the fact that you can taste, even if you are stuck tasting prison food. There’s going to come a day where your prize gets used up. Make the most of your lottery winnings right now while you can.
