THE RETIREMENT CAFÉ
By Ernie J. Zelinski
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Winning a Lottery The Retirement Plan with the Most Bugs to Be Worked Out
(Better Known as the Retirement Plan for Dumb People)
A recent study indicated that a
whopping 21 percent of Americans see winning the lottery as an important wealth-building
strategy. A similar study of Canadians showed that about 12 percent were counting on
winning a big lottery so they could have enough retirement income to retire in style.
Even more recently, a study found that one-third of Canadian female Baby Boomers are hoping for a lottery
win to fund their retirement.
Now I could be wrong, but my guess is most of them don't even buy lottery tickets.
In the same vein, my retirement
plan is to run away from it all, just like I tried to do when I was a kid, to no
avail.
Truth be known, both of these retirement plans are bound to fail.
Winning the lottery is, in fact,
the retirement plan designed for dummies. According to lottery statistics, the odds of winning the
Mega Millions Jackpot are said to be one in 175 million.
Of course people would rather
deceive themselves. As Robert J. Ringer so wisely
stated, "Remember, human beings by and large don't want to hear the truth. Who needs truth if it's going
to put you out of business? We would much rather delude ourselves simply by ignoring the facts, even if we
only succeed in prolonging the evitable. Unfortunately, by doing so we also guarantee disastrous long-term
results."
Recently Gallup identified the top 10 sources of retirement income available to Americans.
Note that lottery winnings were not on the top-10 list and would likely not appear on the top-100 list of sources of retirement income. Even so, people actually visit websites and read books on lottery tips to help them win. Incidentally my retirement income is based primarily on the sales of my book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free which falls into "Rent and Royalties", the item that provides the least in retirement income for the vast number of retirees. But The World's Best Retirement Book is a much safer bet for a comfortable retirement than buying lottery tickets. That is why I haven't purchased lottery tickets for years.
My lottery tip to you is that if you want an adequate income in retirement, don't count on the lottery.
Simply put, people who are counting on winning the lottery as part of their
retirement plan are delusional. Not only are people whose retirement plan is to win the lottery out
of touch with reality, their condition seems to get much worse with time.
As already stated, people's chances of winning the lottery are extremely remote. Indeed, their dying in their
car is ten to a hundred times more likely given that over 50,000 people in America die in car accidents each
year.
An actuary actually calculated that anyone driving to buy a lottery ticket has
twice as much chance of dying in a car accident during the trip than he or she has of winning anything from the
ticket.
By the way, this is not being negative. It is simply recognizing life the way it is so that you don't pursue an
illusion for the rest of your life. If it isn't an illusion, it is something not likely to be attained by 99.99
percent of people who buy lottery tickets.
As hard as it is, wouldn't it still be a lot easier to discover what work really turns you on and to take the necessary steps to
pursue it instead of engaging yourself in self-delusion how you can turn your life around by buying
lottery tickets?
Even winning a lottery won't save many people from financial despair in their lives. Nothing is more tragic
than the person who wants to desperately win a multi-million dollar lottery, actually wins one, and finds out
that his or her life is worse than it was before.
This is more common than you may think. There are many reasons why this happens but I won't spend time on
this; it would take up too much valuable virtual real estate on this website.
I can tell you one important thing, however. If I had won a multi-million dollar lottery while writing my
best-selling books, I would have had to stop writing them.
I could no longer have written the books from my heart if I had a million dollars in the bank. Having to stop
writing my books would have taken away a lot of purpose and satisfaction from my life.
Keep in mind that if this website or one of my books ends up making me a cool million, I will get a million
times more satisfaction than I would from winning an equivalent amount in a lottery. In fact, being a
creator is what my retirement plan is based on. It is a sort of a retirement job, but
a fun one which I would do for free and which brings me joy in retirement.
There is one more important thing I can tell you about people who win lotteries. They have not done anything
remarkable or truly satisfying to earn the money. I am sure that their friends won't respect them even one
tenth as much as my friends respect me for using my creativity and initiative to make a decent living without a
real job.
In short, after great health, one of the best retirement gifts
that you can give yourself is a retirement plan based on your creative efforts instead of on the chances
of winning a lottery. This way you won't have to be as concerned about when and where to retire.
Truth be told, winning the lottery is the retirement plan with the most
bugs to be worked out.
You Don't Earn Your Retirement Karma Points by
Winning a Lottery.
You Earn Your Retirement Karma Points by Reading
The World's Best
Lottery Ticket for Retirement!
Purchase How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free Today:
COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Ernie J. Zelinski
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