Dare I envy the Powerball Winner?

 

Envy is not a good feeling.  Wanting what someone else has is just a waste of time.  Wishing something might happen to you after seeing someone else get a quick fix to the high life is just a waste of wishes.  The desire for what you do not have is a thankless way of living.

But we all seem to do it anyway, at least once in a while.

Why do we envy others?  Why do we wish to get rich quick?  Why do we desire what we don’t have instead of being thankful for what we do have?

Jealously is a common feeling; it just has to be reined in and controlled.  But too many of us wish to get rich quick, rather than work for what is rightfully ours.  Sure, I’d love to win the lottery or the Powerball drawing.  Who wouldn’t?  But does hundreds of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of millions of dollars solve everything?

It might. 

But it might not.

So why would I envy the Powerball winner? 

The real reason is how good the past few days have felt.  I took three days off this week in order to have a five-day weekend and it felt wonderful.  I miss the days I worked from home, was able to easily schedule work around my boys’ activities and take time to just sit in the sun, read a good book or go for a mini road trip whenever the mood struck me.  Based on that, the idea of winning a bunch of money so I can do whatever I want to do is certainly very appealing. 

But it is not the way we live.  We work in order to live.  We appreciate what we earn.  We are thankful for what we have and we try our best not to spend wasted time wishing for what we don’t have.  If we truly want something, we work towards a goal and we appreciate it even more after everything we did to get there.  People often squander what is given to them for no reason but are less likely to lose what they worked so hard at to achieve.

So we plug away at our day jobs and in reality, having a busy day job makes taking time off more enjoyable (even if it does make you wish for more time off).  You tend to appreciate something more when you get it less often.    

And I really did appreciate the time off. 

It gave me extra time with my family.  We enjoyed a mini road trip and time at the beach.  I worked around the house when I felt like it and relaxed when I wanted to.  I easily found the time to write and I did not feel forced to find time between this and that, work and sleep, or chores and kids.  

 

 

Taking the time off also heightened my desire to focus on what it is I wish to achieve.  I have hopes and dreams I dare to come true and the daily grind is not going to stop me from making my own lottery a reality.