I won the Big Bag of Cash!

OK, so I tried to anyway! I have tried many many times to get through to CHFI for this contest but never have any luck getting through.  So, this morning, I thought if I wrote that headline just before they announced the "be the fifteenth caller now", it might be like a form of positive thinking or something like that.  The notion that if you think and act like you have already won, it will happen.  Clearly, I was not thinking hard enough.  

The other day the woman from Toronto who won the big lotto max prize of 40 million was on the  news doing her crazy happy dance...and I don't use the term "crazy" loosely in this case.  Is it just me or was she a little "too" crazy?  Who is to say really?  We all express ourselves and our emotions differently.  In fact, she was probably just being authentic, but her authenticity made me uncomfortable for some reason.  She seemed a bit out of control and being out of control is one of my own personal issues, so I suppose I found her behaviour disturbing and annoying because I myself would have behaved with far more composure.  She triggered something in me.  

I imagined her incapable of being able to handle such a large prize.  She will probably spend it on all the wrong things, I thought.  She will be one of those winners who finds themselves broke again in a couple of years or sooner.  I would know how to spend it.  That's why I deserve to win it.  Not some loony tunes woman.  I started to examine my thinking and it occurred to me that my desire to want to control how she spends her winnings was just as insane as her "out of control" happy dance.  It is like telling a homeless person how to spend the toonie you just tossed in their cup.  You cannot.  If it goes toward another bottle of gut-rot, it just does.  We cannot give to receive the results "we" desire.  The gift is the giving. Full stop.

Why was I judging this woman?  I did not know her.  At all. I had no right to judge her.  She may be a perfectly normal person.  She just collected a cheque for 40 million dollars - is it any wonder she was a little out of control?  Her physical appearance was very modest.  She wore no jewelry or make-up and her hair was long and loosely pulled off her face in a thick pony tail.  It appeared she had made little effort for the TV cameras.  She looked like a typical traditional Italian or Portuguese house wife.  A bit bulky.  Someone's Nona.   Turns out she did have grandchildren - 5, I think it was. She was only 51.  One of the things she planned to do was take them to Disney World.  A dream that she was likely unable to fulfill the day before.  Good on her. Maybe that would be her plan.  Just keep giving and giving and giving to her family like she always has.  Anything else might feel foreign to her.  Perhaps that role is so entrenched in her psyche she would not even consider alternative uses for her new found wealth.

In any case, I will not have any control over what she does or does not do with her cash.  A friend of mine suggested it was good to see her win it rather than some rich dude that did not need it.  I doubt that rich dudes bother buying lottery tickets.  Still, my favourite lottery win story of all time was the old couple about 2 years ago in the US that won big and gave away every cent, citing they already had everything they needed...each other.  

They had already won before they won.  How about that?