Sage advice. Now if only I followed it more often...
It is a typical Saturday morning, you walk over to your mailbox and inside you find white envelope with "IMPORTANT" written on it with big red letters. Assuming it is just a magazine subscription offer or maybe a late bill, you calmly tear the envelope open with little curiosity. Inside you find a neatly typewritten paper, the kind of junk mail people like sending. After reading the first few lines you begin hopping up and down with joy. You just won a hundred thousand dollars since you where hundred thousandth person to buy from a popular mail order store...
The above is only a dream to the billions of people who try everything to win a large amount of money with the least amount of effort. Imagine how many lottery tickets are sold everyday. Is it worth to keep trying to win if the odds are against you? And, let's say you do win, would you be as happy as you think you would be? Probably not. As I will explain in this paper, money will, most likely, make your life worse than it is right now.
The money itself does not do you any harm, but the greed that comes along with it will. The sudden wealth will change you and the people around you. You will no longer share what you have, but you will keep it for yourself. Every day you will fear that someone will take it away.
The people around you, such as friends or family, will also become greedy. They will become your enemies, constantly seeking for an opportunity to grab some of the money for themselves. No one will actually be happy for you, deep inside they are thinking about what they could do with the money if they had it. Although nobody will ask for money directly everyone will have a evil plan, they will try to get you to offer some money. That way, nobody could say that they expected to get it, they would simply claim that it was a gift. Such greed can not only lead to lost friends, but it could also lead to violence. People who where your enemies before, will try to get it even if they had to hurt you or someone else to get some money. If your planing to get rich soon, beware of that neighbor, you know, the one you are always in war with!!!
There is one last thing I have to mention about greed. It will grow. First it will only be a small problem, but as the days go on you will become a money eating monster. You will want more, more, and more. You will never be satisfied with what you have. You will invest every single cent in the stock market, gambling, horse races... and, yes, you will even bet with your buddies on who can burp the longest!!! (Hum!!! I almost wrote a serious paper!!!) Worst of all, with all this investing you will always be risking to lose everything, and after you lost there would be nothing else to do except to regret you ever were so greedy.
So, you see, money isn't as good for you as it may seem, after all, money can't buy happiness. The next time you find yourself buying a lottery ticket, think of how it could make your life miserable. Save the money and buy a doughnut.