Wednesday Writing Essentials - WWE – Lottery

Lottery

My answer would be simple “To try and do the most good in the world”; I say “try” because we know we can’t solve every problem and “most” because I want to reach as many people as humanly possible. They say “Charity starts at home” so I think I’m not alone in the concept of taking care of your family; for one thing everyone should own their houses outright (no mortgages or leans) and if one of them didn’t I would buy them one.

Nobody needs a mansion, houses are fine places to dwell and grow up but my eldest niece (who I’m quite fond of) has requested a castle in Ireland and I like the idea, maybe something near the Cliffs of Moher; it would be a nice investment for when I visited the Emerald Isle. Here’s a question for the reader, are the old historic castles of Ireland livable, buyable or even habitable; must you build your own and if so are there still castle builders around to build them?

What I would avoid is the ostentatious sedentary lifestyle, if I didn’t have to work I wouldn’t, but taking a helicopter to the beach when I’m perfectly capable of driving seems just wasteful. I’ll admit I do like to party and so I suppose the first person I would have on the payroll would be someone to motivate me to get out of bed and do something with my day so I don’t wind up a complete mess; I’ve thought this through many times and I’m inherently lazy (I work to pay bills, bills are my main motivation).

Next I would trick out my 92 Fox Body Mustang, I might get other cars but I would never get rid of her because she was my Dad’s last car; a new paint job and half a dozen layers of clear coat so it would be looking into a pristine black mirror. The car actually runs quite well so really the only improvements I could think of would be a boss air induction system and air-ride suspension; off the line it doesn’t have a lot of competitor’s so she doesn’t need much (likely a new stereo system).

It would probably take a few lifetimes to blow through half-a-billion dollars so of course I’d want to invest some of that money to earn a dividend and keep money coming in for future generations, investing in American firms seems to make the most sense since they are having the hardest go of it; what few goods and services that are still produced here should be celebrated for their patriotic value alone. Socks are a good example, when was the last time you bought some socks that were made here? They are simple enough to manufacture but everyone wants to pay less, maybe I would start my own sock company?

Finally I don’t know how many of you have seen the ads for nokidhungry.org which has Jeff Bridges as it’s spokesperson, I see it all the time on Hulu and every time I shake my head; it is hard to believe that kids are going to bed hungry in this great country. State politicians put more emphasis (in California at least) on billion dollar bond measures to build more schools, I’ve never seen a bond measure to make sure every child has 3 squares a day. It’s seems it’s fallen on the charitable organizations like “Loaves and Fishes” to feed disenfranchised families in all major cities throughout the U.S.

When I learned that Bill and Melissa Gates donated “90%” of Microsoft’s annual earnings to charity it renewed my faith in mankind, just imagine how vast the amount of money must be to operate a giant corporation like Microsoft with only 10% of your earnings and still return a profit; boggles the mind! We all know the adage about the “rich man getting into heaven Vs. the camel through the eye of a needle”, I don’t think you need to die impoverished but if you just had tons of money and never helped people than that is kinda selfish I think.

One thing I discovered about charitable organizations unlike the two mentioned above is that a good 60% of your donation goes to administrative fees, basically people who get paid to handle you donation; so only 40 cents of the dollar you donate reaches the intended victim (if even that much). Why not take out the middle man and travel the globe giving money and resources directly to the villages, clinics, missions and schools where children are starving? It would certainly keep you busy and the gratification would be almost instant.

Kids shouldn’t suffer because they had no choice in their situation, they were born into a situation they had no control over and so they didn’t have any choice; if we could do one thing (if I could do one thing)… it should be to make sure every child doesn’t go to sleep hungry.This is how I would spend the rest of my days and even if I still died rich; I know that any God looking down upon us would know I made the world a better place and He/She would be pleased (hopefully).

It’s fitting I’m writing this on Easter day, today is a day of spiritual peace and I’ve certainly felt that today; for our Jewish friends “Happy Passover” (:

Happy Easter friends ^_^

Challenge:

What did you do when you won the mega million dollar lottery?