Late Lottery Winner

I recently read about Donald Peters, a 79 year old man who bought two lottery tickets for ten weeks and then sadly died just a couple of hours later. The only reason why this made the news was because his wife happened to check his numbers a few weeks after his death and discovered that one of the tickets had won a prize worth $10 million.

The children of the late winner commented that their father would have appreciated the quirk of fate that left his wife rich. Brian Peters said, “He'd be very mad – he just passed away and she won a lot of money.” When asked what Donald might have said about the win, Brian commented: “He'd say, ‘Figures!’”

Personally, I don’t know whether to feel pleased for Donald’s widow, who won’t have to worry about money for the rest of her life, or sad for Donald himself, who never got to experience the thrill of winning that he had been pursuing. I suppose that both responses are natural, and Donald’s family probably feel the same way.

What this story highlights is the fact that life is full of surprises. We can play the lottery, win a jackpot and yet still not live happily ever after. We can also play the lottery, never win a thing and yet derive great pleasure from the simple act of participating.

Perhaps the whole appeal of lottery games is that they bring us face to face with the principle of chaos and allow us to experience the random nature of the universe. So many of us try to control as many aspects of our lives as possible that we forget how little control we really have. Playing the UK Lotto, EuroMillions or some similar game allows us to become more aware our relative lack of control, and thereby learn to “go with the flow” and see what happens.

Consider going with the flow yourself in 2009. Buy your tickets, and by all means hope for the best, but don’t worry about second-guessing the universe. Instead, embrace the random nature of the game and enjoy the excitement that not knowing what will happen can bring.

Article Last Updated: 08/07/2011 16:03:20

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