I want to be a lotto multi-millionaire so freaking bad?

Aside from Pacquiao winning his eighth title and further cementing his status as a boxing legend, another bit of news that has enamored the whole country is the 400 million Grand Lotto jackpot prize. Nobody has won the prize as of yesterday and the pot money could very well reach the 500 million mark in the next few draws.

Being a part of the working class, I had the privilege to partake in the lotto craziness for the first time last Tuesday. Since my ticket was only good until the last draw, I shall bet another two draws in time for tomorrow night’s draw. Though Lady Luck hasn’t quite smiled on me, I’m still optimistic that I’ll win some prize someday. Heck, even the jackpot! Self-fulfilling prophecy, people!

Part of my self-fulfilling mantra is to contemplate on what I’ll do with the money if ever I win that big of an amount. Yes, dear reader, I spend a good ten minutes of my day just thinking about it and hoping that it does become reality for me. Don’t worry, if I win, I’ll give you around a hundred thousand just for reading my blog! Haha.

I was even joking with Marvin and Joy earlier today about the enormous amount. Withdrawing a hundred thousand or even a million would just be barya or buhryah as Lemu would say it.

But of course, I asked myself. “Do I really need that amount of money in my life?” Actually, two social sciences disciplines already somewhat disagree. I remember reading an article for our Microeconomics class that wealth can only influence happiness up to a certain point. For this instance, a point probably way below than the almost P500 million jackpot we have. Thus, P500 million seems too much for happiness to make up for.

And too much probably it is. Which can even lead to greater dissatisfaction. A strain of psychology’s tyranny of freedom. Excess choice leads to less satisfaction. Since we’d have more choices to spend our money on, we might be less and less satisfied with the purchases we make. The tendency to think that we could have probably spent better or purchased a more luxurious item becomes greater. And it perpetuates a consumerist cycle of purchase displeasure and heeding the urge to buy. The classic irony of having less when having more.

So what now? Probably a simple word switch of the classic irony will do. Have more when you have less. Happiness does not rely on money or the things it can buy. One can have a few possessions and still be happier than one who has all the material things. It just shows that happiness depends more on the intangible things that a person possesses such as close and supportive relationships, positive thinking habits and endeavors which enrich his/her life.

Of course, winning the grand lotto jackpot would not hurt one bit, right? But this early, let’s strive to seek and own less but still feel and have more.