Photo derivative of one by Mark Ou licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Most people would agree: if you don’t buy a ticket you can’t win the lottery.
We have all have heard that you’re more likely to be struck by lightning, become president of the USA, or die in an asteroid apocalypse than you are at actually winning the lottery. (source)
But millions of people play weekly anyway because they know this truth: you can’t win if you don’t play.
(There’s a variety of things going on with lotteries and our brains and I’ll return to those ideas in another post later. For now the only thing we need to focus on is you can’t win if you don’t play.)
Do you want to lose weight? Are you doing anything about it?
Do you want that promotion? Are you doing anything about it?
Do you want that trip to (insert lovely place here)? Are you doing anything about it?
Do you want a better relationship (insert name here)? Are you doing anything about it?
(Maybe you want one of those things above and you’ve been working hard for years at it. This post isn’t aimed at you; there will be some for you later.)
All of us, myself included, can have a desire to be in the game (whether that game is related to work, travel, health, relationships, etc). We might really WANT something but if we aren’t actually DOING anything about it we have worse odds than playing the lottery of it actually happening.
Often, the only time life happens to us it’s a bad thing; accidents, health issues, being laid off. Those things can happen to anyone at any time. You don’t need a lottery ticket for those – it’s just part of life. So sitting back doesn’t provide many options for good things to happen to us.
You can’t win if you don’t play.
Yet there are some days/weeks/months/years we don’t even bother trying to get to the gas station to buy that lottery ticket. We don’t even want to get off the couch let alone get into our car. We just don’t play the game.
Here’s the thing…
I realized life isn’t just happening to me; I’m participating in it. I’m actively trying to cultivate more of what I want, what I care about, what I enjoy. And trying to focus less on what takes away from the beauty around me; some of which is internal, some external.
I’ve made the choice to get off the couch and into my car because I realized in order to have any chance at “winning” at life I have to be in the game. (“Winning/Success”, what is it and how do we define it — yup, more on that later…)
Here’s what I’m looking for from you today; I’d love for you to comment below and let us know:
What’s a desire you have for your life? What are you looking to accomplish? What do you want more of in your life?
What’s keeping you out of the game? Why are you not working toward one of your goals?
Just let us know if this resonates with you at all. Are you stuck on the couch but want to be in the game?
I want to build up the new vein of my business so that it not only allows us to travel and live comfortably again, but also surpasses my previous income. So I guess, my money/freedom/flexibility and direction.
Thanks for sharing Michelle!
A lot of my goals are based on taking care of my family and self without having to rely much on others. I love being in control of what I can accomplish and being responsible as a member of society. Since I love what I do, I want to be able to build my business enough to allow my wife and family to have choices in their lives. I also have a strong desire to help others who might see themselves and “helpless” My ultimate goal is to be able to share my talents with people who need them the most, in order to improve the lives of others.