Lottery

Yesterday I went and did something stupid. Yes, something stupid. Because it is not an intelligent act to buy a lottery ticket. It is to submit to the lower parts of the brain tempting me with the financial freedom I would like to enjoy, when I fail to consider the consequences.

The pot was 123 million Danish kroner. By the exchange rate of today that is equal to almost 16.5 million euros. So it would have been quite a win to pocket that money. If you are anywhere close to normal in this society you would probably think that such a huge influx of monetary gain would only yield positive changes to your life. But have you considered that you might not the be the same person as you were before you turned ridiculously rich overnight?

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton said in a letter addressed to a bishop in 1887:

    ”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Now in the society of today, where we have done away with nobility mostly, power is no longer only what you are born into. It is also what you accumulate of capacity for economic redistribution. Put more simply, it is now the money in your wallet that buys the power you have to influence society. Politicians take supporting charity to push forward their campaigns, and this runs through all of society. With more money comes the power to purchase more correctly produced goods from a social perspective. Sometimes this would amount to fair trade products. It also comes with the power to purchase more the incorrectly produced goods, such as clothes, shoes and electrical appliances made from child labour or underpaid labour.

So this is where the quote comes in handy. For how can we determine whether we personally would be a driving force towards more socially responsible demand in the market or the contrary? Perhaps there is no real way to know before you are truly there. Before you truly master the quantity of purchasing power that allows you to succesfully alter your way of life at least for a significant period of time.

I believe I spent at least half an hour collectively thinking about what I would do with such a sum of money had I won. And I cannot say for sure if all the positive things I initially figured I would do with the money would outweigh the negative things I came up with.

In a way I am happy that I did not win. Simply because I am happy with being the person I am right now, and while I do not have the economic freedom to choose to purchase only the responsibly produced goods, I am at a point right know where I know I would if I did not change my life over night. I like who I am, and I think such a large sum of power to change, would be hard to keep away from changing me.