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Lottery mania

I live in Canada. To be a bit more exact, I live in the Vancouver area in British Columbia. There happens to be a bit of a buzz around here these days because of the lottery tickets. The takings? Estimated at 40 million Canadian dollars. Tax free. That's a lot of money. It seems to be growing at every draw. There are people lining up to give up their hard earned money for a chance to win a lot more (not so hard earned) money.

I spent money too. Didn't win. My chances of winning are probably something like 1 in 13,983,816. A ticket costs $2. That's a pretty good chance of kissing your $2 (or $4 or $20) goodbye. Most people know that. They still willingly kiss it goodbye. Why? They hope that their ticket is the winning one. It would be amazing to win that much money. People have these what will I do when I win stories to go over. So far... I have allegedly promised a few vehicles and a couple of houses to various folks. I am not sure why I did that. Because in reality, I would rather take the money, buy an island and do something on it.

I know a fellow who knows a fellow who won the lottery. I say that man is a happy person. I'd like to be that happy too. I'd like to be that rich, I'll figure out my own happiness with that kind of money. They say money can't buy you happiness but I think it can buy you a lot of things that make you very happy. So, money can buy you happiness, not to mention a whole lot of other things.

Of course, you cannot argue with the odds. You are more likely to do so many more things than win the lottery, get hit by lightning, and that sort of thing. Yet we take the chance. Is it greed? Is it because we hope for a better life? Will the winner(s) actually do what they said they would? Somehow, I don't think so. We hear politicians promising world peace and cures for ailments that affect man and beast. Something concrete very rarely happens. Human nature triumphs. We are greedy, we live in a world of haves and have nots and that is how it will be. Forever. So we all hope for that piece of the lottery pie. Who knows, we may end up winning and of course we will make the world a better place with that money. Or at lest for those few people we actually like.

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