The Lottery Question

I was just spending another ungodly amount of time on TikTok when I came across a video of a woman who talked about asking “The Lottery Question”. Essentially, if you woke up tomorrow and found that you’d won the lottery, no longer having to work for money, what would you do? This, of course, is a common question that is supposed to reveal where your values lie, a question I’ve answered and fantasized about many times. My mind went exactly where it always goes, except, she wasn’t done talking…

So, my number one value, I always say, is Freedom. My pursuit of money and financial stability is for the plan of being free, having the ability to choose at any moment what I want to do, no matter the time or cost. That’s the after goal though, right? The very first thing that I think of, in the name of practicality, is eliminating debt and taking care of my people. This is right where my thoughts were when I heard the TikToker say don’t do this. Ha! Like she could hear my thoughts!

She went on to say that everyone does the altruistic thing first, they think about taking care of their families and their friends, they think about settling all of their debts. She said this is missing the point. In this magical lottery scenario, all those things are handled. Nobody needs anything from you, you don’t have any debt to settle. So, now what?

That’s when I rested back on freedom, as I always do. However, her tone, that caveat, it made me finally ask myself a new question. What exactly do I want to do with this so-called freedom? It’s a question I never asked, but the answer is something I’ve known for a while. I want to travel.

I feel a bit embarrassed, putting that so plainly, but traveling has always been a tricky experience, for me. Thankfully, I’ve had the opportunity to travel - mostly because my long-time best friend is a travel expert. Like, naturally. Ever since she could, she did. She plans multiple trips per year and for about half of my adult life, her trips were my entry-way to travel.

The truth is though, it was her desire to travel and her sense of ease around it that always got me to go, when I did. She just made it seem so normal, like what’s the big deal? Only, it really was a big deal for me, and I spent a lot of time on those trips being far too anxious to immerse myself in the experience fully.

I was always afraid because of money. What if something went terribly wrong and I didn’t have enough to get myself out of a jam? Or what if I hold everyone up because I didn’t financially plan as well as the rest of the travel group? And most often - I wouldn’t trust myself at all to get my shit together in time to go on the trip in the first place. So, I would opt out without even trying.

From the space I’m in now, I see how irrational it is, even while still feeling some connection to those fears. As an adult, I’ve had many moments of having to reckon with the fact that I experienced some poverty as a child. That’s a rough and strange realization to make and it’s even stranger to know how much my present, much more stable, life is still being dictated by that experience. There’s so much unlearning that still has to happen.

I feel good though, that I can finally tell myself, “I want to travel”. I want to explore. I want to give myself experiences that grow my compassion and sense of connection to others. I want to see and be a part of things that make my life feel full and worth writing about joyfully. That’s what I want. I spent a lot of time downplaying my interest in traveling out of fear and shame. And I can’t tell how close I am to the other side of this, but now that I know, I deserve to show up for that desire.

And I’m not waiting to hit the lottery.