What if you could throw it all away? What would you do? What would you do if you won the lottery? Suddenly, you’re a trillionaire tomorrow morning. Would you change your life?
Now, certainly, in Western countries, the vast majority of people would say, of course. I’m going to totally change my life. I’m going to buy that business I always wanted to own. I’m going to go on an extensive trip. I’m going to go and buy that beautiful home, etcetera, etcetera.
But numerous studies have shown that after five years or so, most lottery winners who have thrown it all away end up with little or no money, maybe even less money than they started with, and they’re exactly back in the same position. And you might ask yourself, why? Why does this occur? Well, I guess the answer is that the exterior self, the outside world, can change a lot. But if you don’t change yourself, if you don’t change you, nothing changes.
So if you were poor with money before you won the lottery, you’re still poor with money after. If you were poor with relationships before you won the lottery, the same thing after. It’s an interesting phenomenon, addiction, for example. People can go to prison, total social opprobrium, their families throw them out, and it just goes on and on and on. And then they get clean for a period of time and relapse.
They fall back. Especially if they’re famous and rich, perhaps a movie star was reading recently. They go to a clinic. They go clean, as it’s called. And after a little bit of stress, whack, back once again with the addiction and this time to death.
They die. The answer to this, once again, is exactly the same as at the beginning of our chat. Same idea. You must change yourself first. You change yourself and then the world changes, doesn’t it?
You change you and it becomes a different place. Sounds awfully simple, but in reality, of course, it’s very, very hard. Now you ask people, what is your goal in life? And most people will tell you, I think, well, I want to be happy. Great.
Me too. I think everyone ultimately wants to be happy. Philosophers such as Aristotle tell us that we all have the potential to be happy. What must I do? What do you mean?
I’ll just be happy. No. You won’t. You won’t be happy without work. Work on you.
The development of you. So people make this claim, but they have no idea how to pass out their life. How to draw a path to their future. Don’t know what to do. So what do you do?
Well, Mark Twain, for one, suggests, I thought it was rather clever actually, get a blank piece of paper. And just write at the top what I’m good at, and on the other side what I’m bad at. Draw a line down the middle and begin to list what you’re good at and what you’re bad at. And when you finish the day, fold it up, put it in your notebook, and show no one. And over time, add new pieces of information or perhaps you found that some are no longer useful, take those away.
But this, in a sense, becomes your map, your map towards your goal of happiness. Now, normally, this happiness must be associated with some professional success. Perhaps you wanna be a successful stay at home mom or successful father or you wanna be a successful businessman. Whatever it is. Whatever it is.
Right? So what would you do if you could throw it all away? And, ultimately, we are told by people that are as eminent as Confucius, to paraphrase, do what you love, and you will never work again. So when you win the lottery and you can throw it all away, in reality, you don’t have to because you’re already there. You’re already doing what you really want to do.
You are in your flow, if you will. You know, every morning I listen to something on the stoics, and they often talk about Epictetus who was a slave, of course. He had nothing. And then they talk about the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who had everything. For the time, he was the physical manifestation of God on earth.
If you will. He could have anything he wanted, good and bad. And for nineteen years, it’s a very long time, nineteen years, he chose only the good. Somehow, he kept the empire together, and he was constantly fighting. It was a time of great change in the Roman Empire.
They had their initial foray, and now the empire is large, and there’s many, many competing factions and fights, and people wanna take it away. Of course, the barbarians wanna take it away. So he was always away from Rome and always campaigning. And with all those temptations, he was able to be an honorable man to himself. And I think this is the secret of stoicism or great philosophies, is that, ultimately, it all begins with me, doesn’t it?
Really, all with me. So if I want to develop, I can. If I don’t want to develop, I won’t. If I want to read, I will. If I don’t want to read, I won’t.
If I want to stop my addiction, whatever that horrible addiction is, I can. And, obviously, people have, and they suffer for it because some of these addictions are quite horrible, I’m sure. But, ultimately, you can go clean. I watched Anthony Hopkins interviewed recently, very famous actor, and he said if he had not stopped alcohol in his early thirties, he would never have achieved the success that he did. He was too addicted to alcohol.
This is from doctor Jordan Peterson. Throw the alcohol bottle away. Get away from any addictions like this, truly, if you really want to go and find yourself. So remember now, the next time you win the lottery and you can throw it all away, stop for a moment and ponder. Am I doing what I love?
And if not, now I have the opportunity perhaps to change it. But still, hopefully, you are already doing what you love. And you know what they say. You know what they say. If you could throw it all away, you’re still going to need critical thinking.
Why? Because critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.