Because I'm a loser.
There's a lot of us losers out there. When it came time to make decisions, we made the wrong ones. Not all of us were aware of the Seven Deadly Sins - - Pride, Greed, Anger, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony and Envy - - but we practiced them to one degree or another, until you're fifty years old and still live from paycheck to paycheck, still dumping money down the rental hole instead of safe and secure in one's own purchased refuge.
Not all of us blame others for our stupid decisions, either. I'm fully aware of whose fault my wasted life is, and nothing you can say to me hurts more than the things I think to myself on a daily basis.
I've read lots of Twitter tweets and Facebook posts and even news commentary such as the one linked above about how playing the lottery is a sucker's game; the people writing those things are correct, of course, but they are also the people who mostly made the right decisions, didn't waste or ruin their lives, are successful, and so lack the required empathy to understand us losers.
So it's a sucker's game, yes. It's the only game we can afford, though, us losers. Only costs a buck or two to have hope in our lives 4 days a week, for those of us with no faith in our lives it's a reasonable substitute. It's less a tax than a share-the-wealth scheme: we all chip in a buck or two on the chance that one of us will get out of this poverty hole. We're happy that someone wins, even if it isn't ourselves.
So for those of you who had hard things to say about lottery odds and how lottery winners really don't find happiness from their sudden wealth: STFU, and thank your invisible fucking deity that there but for His grace go you yourself.
Addendum: I won $4 on Saturday's Powerball.
I really just want One Good Year.
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6 comments:
Amen brother, amen.
Just a slim chance at getting out of this hole I dug.....
Steve
I don't ever play the lotto, but got 4 tickets for the last one. Everyone had a surprising amount of fun even though we didn't win anything.
It's a Hope Tax.
@Borepatch: It's the only voluntary tax in the USA, I might add.
Although I would hesitate to believe that anyone in this country truly owns the property that they live on.
Try:
1 For 30 years, the bank can take it any time you are late with a payment, or fail to hold adequate insurance.
2 The entire time that you live there, you pay rent to the government for the privilege of 'owning' that property, and if you fail to pay, they take it from you.
3 In many places, you also pay the homeowner's association dues each year. Fail to pay, and they can take it from you.
4 If the homeowner's association doesn't like how tall your grass is, what color the curtains are, or any number of other things, they can take your house from you.
5 When it comes time to sell, you can only sell it to people that the government approves of. (For example, try running a real estate ad that says: "I will not sell to the Irish."
That isn't ownership. To me, ownership means that it is yours to do with as you please. The American version of ownership is more like community property.
Amen. Wouldn't hurt to win a little to help my growing debt to society in school loans haha
When the payout gets to be more than $176MM (assuming a single winner), making a $1 play is no longer a tax, but a reasonable bet (albeit at very long odds). The payout is greater than the odds.
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