What If...

What would you do if you suddenly won a pile of money? 

The Mega Millions lottery just reached it's third highest level ever, toppling the $400 million mark! The average American household earned just over $50,000 in 2011. 

It would take approximately 8,000 years to earn that amount of money! A tad longer than most of us are hanging around! My sister claims she wouldn't want that much money, she would not want the headache or responsibility! I told her I would gladly take that over for her. She might change her tune if she actually won! 

I will purchase an occasional ticket and for just a split second allow myself to imagine winning. Your world of opportunity could be endless, depending on how you would choose to live. But with this would come enormous responsibility, not only to try to stay true to yourself and those around you, but to give back. I have many fantasies about the things I could do with that amount of income, the ways I could donate and give to those who have so many needs. It would be a riot to just give to any cause or any person and have it actually make a difference! 

But do we really need millions to make a difference? Could we, the average $50,000 household give and have it impact someone? That answer is clearly yes. We could donate not only money but time or talent. 

I ate lunch with a group of kindergartners, and had several kids needing hugs. Still others simply wanted to tell a story and have someone listen. It didn't cost me a penny, I got to eat lunch and was entertained the entire time! But to that attention-starved kid, maybe I filled a need for a little while. So when I go fork over my dollar for the next chance to win unimaginable millions and wake up the next day to find out it wasn't me who won, I'll remind myself of other ways to win and give back. Those kindergartners might be seeing me a tad more often!