I felt sorry for the couple featured on the news the other night. They had just won sixty million pounds on the National Lottery in the United Kingdom. They were filmed shaking the ritual bottle of carbonated liquid and spraying the contents into the cosmos. Smiles wrapped around bony faces that did not like they were used to being stretched. These were working people who were just not used to good luck.

I am disappointed by the popular expectation of lotteries by the general public in Europe, which is to make them wealthy beyond their dreams.

I don’t enter lotteries because the odds of winning are ludicrously infinitesimal. I would rather have a thousand times larger chance of winning 60,000 than win 60,000,000. And although popular opinion would not agree with me, I think that the lesser prize would bring greater contentment.

I remember hearing how one lottery winner declared that he would buy a new washing machine but otherwise his life would not change. I wonder how he got on? Did he survive the unexpected consequences of extreme and sudden wealth? So concerned are the lottery companies around the bad publicity from winners who encounter ‘problems’, that they set up a support network of advisers. Not for the winner’s well-being but to avoid any bad publicity for the lottery.

Because spending money wisely is not a skill many of us have. I live next door to some lottery winners who after ten years have reportedly, spent the lot. Their house and it’s garden could hardly be described as aesthetically pleasing and is patrolled by three large and ill disciplined dogs. The high metal boundary fence keeps the dogs in and the world out. They have never emerged and walked the five hundred metres to introduce themselves to their neighbour. I have never wanted to shake their locked gates whilst being barked at by dogs and introduce myself.

There is an assumption in the wealthy nations of the world that happiness is found through wealth and lost in poverty. Inhabitants of the poor countries aspire to this same goal thus making the yellow brick road more real. But most who have lived in Europe since birth with only moderate resources, know that it a ‘high standard of living’ does not make you ‘happy’.

To be happy is like a child at a birthday party. It knows that tomorrow life will be back to normal, but for the time being, various fantasies and pleasure fulfilments can be enjoyed.

Such fantasies follow us into adulthood and for some, end only at death.

I went to a children’s party once in the early 1960’s and at the end, all the children were given a stick of rock. One boy however didn’t get a stick of rock and I remember my annoyance with my parents who insisted I break my stick of rock and give one half to him. Their act of compassion was intended as a learning opportunity for me, for which I was not grateful but now am. For I must have learnt that the happiness shared, brings the greater contentment.

Therefore if I was on that team of advisers supporting our lucky lottery winners my pitch would be something like this;

‘Put aside the amount you need to keep you at the level of comfort you are accustomed to, for the rest of your life. Perhaps buy one thing for yourself that you have always dreamed of owning. The remainder you should give away. Now let’s think how we are going to give away so much money.’

In my view, a lottery with thirty or sixty thousand pound prizes, is far easy to manage. Winners will continue to work, if they are working age, and keep those friendships and daily routines which make them content. They can pay off part of a mortgage or accumulated loans that have been a financial burden and feel lighter in themselves. Or if they are natural savers, put the money in the bank.

Perhaps the problem really has nothing to do with money but what we expect from life. I have sat on a beach in Bali, Indonesia chatting with local people who told me that I was very lucky because I have possessions. I told them they were more wealthy because they could enjoy the best sunsets.

Somewhere in-between I guess is the place where contentment with life lies. If you want to find it, take my advice and spend your two pounds for a lottery ticket on a bus ride to somewhere beautiful.

 

The thief left it behind,

the moon at the window.

 

Basho, Zen Master on discovering a thief had taken his only possession; a begging bowl.