PSA: If You Played Powerball Today, Vote Tomorrow
It's lunch hour and I have left my home office to run to the Wawa. Not really because I couldn't make lunch from my own fridge, but more because I get restless during my remote workdays and find a little errand at mid-day to the Starbucks or the Post Office or the Grocery gives me a chance to get out of my chair and out of my house for some sunshine and a stretch.
Today, I'm excited because the hot turkey bowls are back and its good comfort food on a fall day, not to mention a preview of the holiday to come. Thanksgiving is my most favorite.
As I look up from the self scanner I notice a line snaking around the chip displays, candy aisle, around the beverage case and practically out the door. There's a guy with a leather jacket full of Vietnam Vet and Harley Davidson patches, an elderly couple with hair white as snow and peaceful smiles on their faces, a guy in painter's overalls flipping a pack of Marlboros in his left hand, a radiant woman in a smart business suit tapping away on her phone, and an impatient man at the back of the line. I didn't register any physical characteristics beyond his foot tapping, arm crossing, nervous energy.
The line for the lottery machine.
Of course, I thought as the scene registered. The Powerball is up to almost 2 billion with a capital "B".
There are very few things that unite us these days, but this is one of them. It's a bit shocking to think about, but for the Powerball to be this high it means we collectively as a society have invested this much in the pool through ticket sales - especially over the last few weeks as the jackpot climbed.
Even now, during this time of great inflation, when we can't afford a tank of gas and the interest rates on homes have stopped that American Dream in its tracks. No matter how wealthy or poor, no matter the color of our skin, or our political affiliation, we will find the money to take our shot.
Why? When the odds are an astounding 1 in 292.2 million to hit the big one?
The answer is simple. We are investing in an opportunity to dream.
When else do we give our minds time to wander about what is possible if there were no limits to our financial means? When do we get to plot how we would turn our homes into our most special respites, travel to the places we have always hoped to visit, showered the people and causes we care about with everything we can to make a difference in the world.
I don't think its a coincidence that the jackpot has grown so high. I think that we are desperate as Americans and as humans to get away from the anger, the arguing, the pain. I think we want to step away from the brink of civil war and find one another again. This lottery seems to me to be a collective prayer albeit aimed in the wrong place.
And I hope our prayers will be answered, I really do. I hope that the God of your choosing or the Quantum field responds to our "Thoughts become things" mantra and bestows great riches on the masses so we can fulfill our wildest dreams.
But in case it doesn't, can we honor this moment in time a different way?
If you played the Powerball today, I hope tomorrow you go out and VOTE. I hope you ignore all the ads and all the lies and all the divisive people of a VERY loud MINORITY on both sides, and you take a moment to dream instead of what our country could be in the same way you have dreamt about hitting the big one.
What would you do if you knew everyone had work that they loved making a fair wage, access to healthcare and education, equal rights not just on paper but in word and deed?
Would you be willing to find common ground?
Stand shoulder to shoulder with you neighbor and try to reclaim our peace as a nation?
Would you give up your lunch hour and stand in line to vote the way you stood today to buy a ticket? Would you stand in that line and share your dreams and ideas with the people around you in the same way you did today in the lotto line?
Would you invest the same money and time to say no to the extreme fringes and link arms with those of us in the muddy middle looking for something- anything- to help pull us from this dark chapter in our history?
Aren't we all exhausted and tapped out from
the racism
the poverty
the conspiracies
the lockdowns
Aren't we all beat down from the wars?
And the losses?
All of those losses
of ideals
of people
People lost to both to the pandemic and to the social ill of the body politic?
If you played the Powerball today, vote tomorrow. With any luck, we will beat the odds where it really counts, and find a way to love one another and our country once again.