Positive Affirmation

I woke up at Don’s house one day last week utterly convinced that I was going to win the lottery that day. It was 6:30a, which is early for me, but I had an 8a meeting (*very* early for Microsofties), so I had set the alarm. Tim, who was also staying at Don’s that week and with whom I was sharing a room (separate beds : ) was on Eastern time, so had already accidently woken me at 6a that morning on his way to the door (it’s not his fault; I’m too long for the bed and it’s a tight squeeze to get past me when I’m I’m in it). I must’ve had some strong dream between 6a and 6:30a as I lay there in and out of sleep.

The premonition was so strong that I recalled the epilog from one of the first non-comic Dilbert books in which Scott Adams talked about his belief that there were multiple parallel universi and that by process of positive affirmations, he’d moved his consciousness into one that had attained great success in spite of his abysmal drawing abilities (this was before his TV series was canceled).

So, all morning, in classic positive affirmation style, I had “I will win the lottery today” running through my head. It swamped all other thoughts, except those of whether I wanted the annual payment or the lump sum ($25M or $13M, respectively) and how I was going to spend the money.

My first purchase was to be a two-week trip for my entire extended family to Hawaii where we would decide how rest of the money was to be spent. The idea was to devise a plan wherein every adult member of my family could get a life-changing amount of money, e.g. $100K, to use to follow their dreams, but awarded only in a manner that wouldn’t actually cause more harm than good (as large sums of money can do [or so I’ve heard…]). Then, I called my sister-in-law to ask her where, money being no object, she would want to live. I’ve been looking for houses in her neighborhood lately so that we could be closer (“It takes a village to raise a child.“).

Right away, she was suspicious of my question, “Why? Are you going to win the lottery?”

“Yes,” I said, confidently.

“Really? How do you know?”

“I woke up with a ‘feeling,’” I said, unashamed.

“How often have you had these feelings and they’ve come true?” she asked, judging her odds.

“Never.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointedly.

“No. I mean, I’ve never had a feeling like this before,” I corrected her.

“Oh,” she said, this time more excited. I’ve also loved that about my sister-in-law. She’s very open-minded. She never once questioned my sanity (out loud), but instead started planning where she wanted to live. Her conclusion is that she’d want a nicer house very close to where she currently live, but basically, that was all. “I like my life,” she said.

That was my conclusion as well. I have things that I want to do that aren’t likely to generate an income stream, e.g. figure out how money works, but my life is a good one and doesn’t need major changes. It was fun to go through the mental exercise and I would certainly have been happy to win the lottery that day, but it’s OK that I didn’t. That early morning feeling lead to positive affirmation of a different kind.