For Love of Money

This one ought to be good, eh? I've long held the notion (and oft shared with others in a self-depreciating manner) that I'm the "dumb one in the Miller family". Most people laugh and generally don't know what to say (that's the funny thing about self-depreciation, no one will ever agree with you, unless they truly hate you...or truly love you).

Granted, its not so much about intelligence; us Millers are all quite deft in our cognitive capabilities. However, its more of an issue of motivation. Where my parents and brother pursue courses of study and careers that they are able to wholly engross themselves in and ponder the subtle minutae, I'm more of a big picture person. I'm fairly content to bobble along at a job that seems to no escape ladders (except for the one that drops into the fiery pits of Hades), doing work that even I am pretty sure is below my skillset (yet sometimes I struggle with it, due to less than intuitive procedures which I have no control over). However, I receive a good paycheck as a result, and manage to find other ways of more or less justifying my existence.

Somehow we came upon discussing the topic of purchasing a winning lottery ticket at work this past week (a fine time to discuss random occurences of good fortune). One of my co-workers has a friend who had won tens of millions of dollars at some lottery a few years back and who had wisely set up a trust with someone other than himself being able to disburse funds. He had done his homework on how to make out well with lottery winnings, and hadn't claimed the prize immediately until he had received counsel. As a result, his attorneys somehow finagled an additional $30K out of the state, claiming accrued interest. I delve too deeply...the result was a single man, who received $13,000 a month and had yet to touch the principle. The disccusion amongst colleagues ranged from how could you spend $13,000 a month?, to how a wife could spend $13,000 a month and that he was lucky he was single.

My comments on the topic were that the majority of my $13,000 a month would probably be spent on tires, speeding tickets, and paying for car insurance. I figured with that kind of money, I could considerably abbreviate just about any commute. To these comments, I was accosted by several co-workers about why I would still hold a job. I figure I'd work as a service technician at a Lamborghini dealership. The most vocal co-worker ranted about how any person who won the lottery and decided to work afterwards should be required to return the money. He was quite keen on jet-setting to all the top-end restaraunts in the world; visiting a different one each night and fully intending on requiring someone to roll him around [like an oversized beach ball] by the time he was of retirement age.

I understand where he was coming from; the joy of winning the lottery is the financial freedom it affords and the ability to pursue your interests entirely. What it made me realize is that a lot of my generation (at least my peers) are so narrow-minded in their view of careers and jobs that they perceive them as drudgery and something to be freed of as soon as possible. I'll concede to being lured into this trap upon occasion; sometimes I'm utterly confused by [primarily] college professors who seemingly teach until the day they die (and some that retire, only to go elsewhere to teach until they die). But then I realize that these people have found interests that coincide with their career aspirations.

For that...I'm jealous.