I won the lottery!

 

Last night’s his­toric $1.5 Bil­lion jack­pot did­n’t net me much. Out of the $20 I spent on tick­ets, only one of them won any­thing for me and that was a measly $4. So, I actu­al­ly lost $16. I did­n’t feel like much of a win­ner this morn­ing as I went about my nor­mal rou­tine and trudged to work like usual.

But the Power­ball lot­tery got me thinking.

Yes, I am capa­ble of that sometimes.

I actu­al­ly have won the lot­tery. Mul­ti­ple times, in fact. Just because these lot­ter­ies did­n’t make me rich beyond my wildest dreams does­n’t mean I should dis­count them or the impact they’ve had on my life.

Jack­pot #1:

I was born in Amer­i­ca. I could’ve been born to a fam­i­ly that lived in a hut in Africa, but I was born in the good ol USA instead. Not to sound racist, but I was also born to a white fam­i­ly and avoid­ed a lot more trou­ble down the road. (If my news read­ing is accu­rate, anyways.)

Jack­pot #2:

I was born into a fam­i­ly where I was loved. Even though my par­ents got divorced when I was two and we became super poor, I was still loved and well cared for. My mom made a lot of sac­ri­fices for us girls, and we appre­ci­ate every sin­gle one of them. She loved us enough to care about our lives and help us under­stand wrong from right. Usu­al­ly with a wood­en spoon!

Jack­pot #3

My mom got remar­ried to my step­dad. He took us out of the ghet­to and into one of the best towns in our state. We instant­ly went from poor to low­er mid­dle class, which is a HUGE socioe­co­nom­ic jump. I don’t think we would’ve been able to get that far ahead in life with­out him. Because of him, I went to the best school dis­trict in the state and got an amaz­ing edu­ca­tion. I also got to par­tic­i­pate in far more extra cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties- Girl Scouts, sports and clubs through school.

Jack­pot #4

Because I was so active in extracur­ric­u­lars, I had a top-notch appli­ca­tion pack­age to sub­mit to my poten­tial uni­ver­si­ty. Not only did I get ear­ly admis­sion, I also received a full ride schol­ar­ship for aca­d­e­mics. The only rea­son I got the schol­ar­ship was because some­one else turned it down to go to anoth­er school. Not hav­ing to pay for school was huge. Instead of all my extra mon­ey going towards pay­ing off stu­dent loans, I was able to start sav­ing and invest­ing it right off the bat, which gives me an incred­i­ble jump over most of my peers. Most of my friends can bare­ly afford to move out of their par­ents’ hous­es and live with a room­mate, where­as I’m gear­ing up to pur­chase a house.

Jack­pot #5

The only rea­son I’ve been able to save like this is because of the excel­lent job I land­ed while still in col­lege. The sum­mer before my last semes­ter of col­lege I interned with a com­pa­ny. I worked my butt off and was lucky enough to receive an offer for full-time employ­ment when I grad­u­at­ed. (That was 2 years and 1 day ago, by the way. Time flies when every day looks the same!) This job paid me more than I ever thought I’d make- heck, I made more in my first year than my step­dad earned the last year of his career. It’s been instru­men­tal to my FI plans, and I’m incred­i­bly grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work here. Even if I may for­get that and com­plain about how much I hate my job occasionally.
Some­times I think we all get a lit­tle bit too hung up on all the neg­a­tive things in our life. I know I’m def­i­nite­ly guilty.

“Ugh I did­n’t win the Power­ball jackpot.”
“Ugh my car needs new tires.”
“Ugh the store was out of my favorite kind of cereal.”

When real­ly, we just need to appre­ci­ate all that life has giv­en us thus far.

“Hey I won $4 last night!”
“My car runs smooth­ly, gets good mileage, and I had a lot of fun putting those miles on the tires.”
“I’m lucky I live in Amer­i­ca where there’s a whole aisle devot­ed to break­fast foods.”

 

What lot­ter­ies have you won in the past?