My work nowadays involves meeting and chatting with folks from all walks of life. They email me to say, “Want to have lunch?” and I say, “Of course!” (After all, I’m all about the power of yes.) We talk about podcasts or travel or bicycling or comic books. Whatever strikes our fancy. When we’ve finished our tea or our Thai noodles, nothing seems to have happened — not on the outside, anyhow.
What’s happened, though, is that we’ve both received lottery tickets. By meeting and chatting and sharing ideas, we’ve been given tickets in the lottery of life.
I also get a ticket whenever I try something new. (Because I now try new things all of the time, I’m accumulating a lot of lottery tickets.)
I get tickets when I say “yes” to things that are scary or difficult too. When I spoke at World Domination Summit in 2012 — something that scared the hell out of me! — I got a lottery ticket. When I flew to Ecuador last September to talk with people about Financial Independence, I got a lottery ticket. When I introduce myself to strangers or “important people”, I get a lottery ticket.
But note that these tickets are rarely handed to me. To get them, I have to take risks. I have to move outside my comfort zone. As much as I enjoy sitting on the couch in the evening watching “Downton Abbey” with Kim, neither one of us receives a lottery ticket for doing so. To get tickets, we have to do things.
Colleen earns a lottery ticket…
The prizes in this lottery are many and varied.
When I learned Spanish, for instance, I received a winning lottery ticket that has paid off in all sorts of ways. I made new friends (my tutor, my English student), traveled to new places (Perú, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador), read new authors, tried new food, watched new movies, and so much more.
When I was in Quito last fall, I rode the teleférico, the cable-car that carries visitors 4000 feet up the side of a nearby volcano. During the fifteen-minute ride, I chatted with two couples that spoke only Spanish. If I hadn’t learned Spanish, I couldn’t have understood them, much less conversed. But because I do speak Spanish, I enjoyed a pleasant chat about one couple’s life in Venezuela and the other couple’s life in Quito. Plus I garnered a restaurant recommendation for later that evening. yet another small prize I won simply because I took the time to learn another language.
Any time I do something — especially something new — there’s a chance my life will be vastly improved in the long run.
Not every meeting and not every experience pays off — in fact, some are disasters — but many do provide a reward. Often enough, those rewards are enormous. Winning lottery tickets are so common and so fruitful, in fact, that I’ve almost become addicted to playing the lottery of life. I relish making new acquaintances, going new places, and trying new things.
I used to think I was unlucky. Good things happened to other people, and never to me. Everyone else had more fun than I did. Now, seven years since learning to say “yes” to life, I know the truth. Wishing won’t make you happy or wealthy, and good things don’t just happen. Luck isn’t magic or a gift from the gods.
You make your own luck.
Am I missing something or are the last three blog posts essentially the same thing?
You’re not missing anything, but they’re not the same thing. Remember: Every Monday this year, I’m posting a piece of my unpublished e-book about fear, freedom, and happiness. So, each post follows from the one before it. If you read them in sequence, they build on each other, expanding on the idea from the previous week(s). There’s naturally some repetition and resonance, but they’re not duplicating the message — I hope.
Nope you are.
Thanks. This has inspired me to continue on with my Spanish classes. We plan on visiting South America later on this year and it should be helpful. It’s much too easy to sit in front of the idiot box but no more!
I like the idea. I’m seriously introverted, so those things can be really hard to do. But I do believe its worthwhile to do them. Connecting with other people is one of the things that is most rewarding in life.
That picture brings back some fine memories and my but those nuts were tough to crack.
Even as an excerpt this holds a great little truth – action and trying new things will more often than not result in a positive result even if initially its negative.
“You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime, you might find, you get what you need!”
You really inspired me, these past few months I felt that I was unlucky. I asked myself why did some of my friends have this kind of life while I’m on a very opposite of their position? But then I paused and think, now I understand that we have a different life and I need to work hard and to be a better person.