Art by Christine Nelson
Each time a national lottery prize reaches astronomical heights, a level of cold, hard cash that the vast majority of Americans will never attain — at least overnight, anyways — we seem to dream quite a bit more than we typically do. Newscasters on stations everywhere ask people on the street, “What would you do with the jackpot?” and invariably, people can’t shut up about all the things they would do. Buy a beach home, start charitable foundations, travel the globe — you get the picture.
This is perhaps a redeeming quality of a state-run lottery like the Powerball — it gives ordinary people the opportunity to dream extraordinary dreams. Now, gambling certainly has a variety of pitfalls, namely addiction and bankruptcy. However, the palpable frenzy that last week’s specific jackpot of nearly $1.6 billion has the opportunity to spark a lesson in American culture.
Eventually, when one lucky person wins the lottery, the pandemonium subsides, and it seems as if the dreams of Americans everywhere are forgotten about, and are not thought about again until another huge jackpot arises. This speaks to a major problem: We aren’t dreaming enough, and when we do dream, we rely on a lottery or some other get-rich-quick scheme to sustain them, rather than through actual goal-setting, belief in oneself and hard work.
Without big dreams, big results don’t happen. However, most people don’t dare to dream big because they have a lack of confidence in their talent, ability or other circumstances that they believe hold them back from achievement. So, instead, they rely on the Powerball to provide hope that they would have the means to fulfill many of their dreams. This lack of self-belief is truly what limits us in accomplishing a dream. Often, this is because we allow a past or present circumstance or hardship to dictate the course we takes our lives, as if we had no choice. Once you allow your circumstance to become an excuse, it will never be overcome.
Unfortunately, most don’t know that we have a choice when it comes to our attitudes and outlook on life. So many use a negative circumstance, whatever it may be, to inhibit the pursuit of our goals and dreams. The fact is everyone has areas of their lives that aren’t ideal, but what separates the successful from the average is that the successful have control over their negative thoughts, and don’t let them impact their direction in life.
“The longer the neurons fire, the more of them that fire, and the more intensely they fire, the more they’re going to wire that inner strength,” according to neuropsychologist Rick Hansen in a Huffington Post article titled “This is Scientific Proof That Happiness is a Choice” published Dec. 9, 2013. This applies to both negative and positive thoughts, but the fact is we have the ability to choose and thereby condition our brains to focus our thoughts toward the positive. Overall, when you choose to think negatively about yourself, you are training your brain not to dream big, and therefore, severely limiting your God-given potential.
While there are certainly massive pitfalls to the Powerball, my point is this: You can achieve many of the dreams that you had when you bought that ticket! Living in America, we have the unique ability to achieve the improbable, but we can’t allow any negative circumstance in the present to dictate the direction we take our lives in the future. Instead, dream big, dream often and write them down! When you make a conscious effort to shut off the flow of negative self-talk, your dreams will certainly have the ability to flourish and come to fruition.
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Follow Thomas Reinhard on Twitter: @thomasdreinhard
