Tuesday, April 17, 2012

It's All about Perspective #2

Remember this post? I decided that it was time for a little repeat blogging about perspective. There were two instances where perspective brought me down a little bit in the last 2.5 weeks.

First, Dave and his co-workers decided to enter the Mega Millions jackpot before the drawing on March 30th. I mean, $656 million is a LOT of money, and we could really have used it.  Haha!  Just kidding, we had no illusions of actually winning.  But several of his co-workers wanted to enter, there's a greater chance of winning if you purchase more tickets and share, yadda yadda yadda.  He put in $2 toward a total of 8 tickets I think. The office was all talking about what they would do with the money if they won.  Basically all of the office went in on it, so if they had won, no one would have shown up to the court on Monday.  And of course the idea of all of that money brought up some questions that Dave and I discussed about how to handle windfalls like that and how to not let money corrupt your soul.  We decided that if we were to win, we'd set up a trust where we could never touch the principal.  It would  be set aside for specific projects and endowments and things, and we would only have access to the interest.  And that interest would be about $200,000 A MONTH!!!  Okay, maybe I was thinking that there was a chance we'd win.  I mean, we were talking about it so rationally.  :D

Right about this point in the week-long conversation, Dave and I were talking about the possibility of finding new jobs and what salary a new job would have to offer in order for him to accept.  And that's when perspective bumped me back to reality.  I had actually been dreaming about having $200,000 a month and then we were talking about accepting a salary of less than $**,*** A YEAR.  And that is when I stopped thinking about the lottery, because I just knew that it would never happen, and that it would never do to have my dreams focused on something so unreal.  Don't worry, I'm now back to dreaming of much smaller things.


Then today Dave and I were eating lunch together.  I had The Kings of Convenience's song "Sorry or Please" stuck in my head and it was starting to annoy Dave (because of course I was humming it aloud during our entire lunch).  So Dave turned on the computer to play a new song so I could get it out of my head. He chose Fun.'s "We Are Young".  This song is so much fun to jam out to!  We got up in our living room and danced!  It was super fun and as I was driving Dave back to his office after lunch I was wondering why I felt so good.

And then I realized that it is because of the lyric "We are young."  That song is good because it makes me feel young.  I don't know yet if this realization has ruined the song for me.  But I hope not.  It's a great in-your-living-room dance party song.  :D

2 comments:

  1. I love the 'We Are Young' song!

    And Vince and I talk a lot about having money because one day, we actually WILL have a ton of money, though not $200,000 a month haha I'm writing a post about it talking about how, like you, I don't want it to ruin me!

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  2. So true, Merry. I feel rich when I hang out with poor people and poor when I hang out with rich people. And young when I'm around my old patients and old when I talk to 23-year-old moms in my ward :) I guess the key is to be grateful for what you do have.

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