The happy life
A BALATO of P50 will be just fine with me.
So I told my coffee confederates at Starbucks SM City Clark at the height of the frenzied betting for the grand lotto.
They just could not believe that I could be so disinterested as to pass off this one-in-29-million-chance of being a multi-multi-millionaire. With none of them betting less than a thousand pesos in multi-multi-combinations at each failed draw.
My greed is not only moderate but very manageable. So I told them.
But with the winnings, you can buy lots of cars, said the espresso-dazed one.
So how many cars I got now? A vintage ’66 Beetle. A collector’s ’94 Crown. A stock Avanza. A first edition CRV. And an Andre Agassi-endorsed Sorento.
No brand new, no Range Rover, no Porsche or even just a BMW.
So what’s the need for those brands? My cars are as utilitarian. Where those luxe wheels go, they can take me too.
You don’t arrive in style as you’d do in them rich men’s cars.
So have you forgotten, style is the man? So who really needs cars?
Winning the lotto can take you places, travel the world over and over. It’s the cappuccino imbiber talking now.
So what have I been doing? Macau, Ho Chi Minh City, and a Singapore-Penang-Phuket star cruise this year. Fifth time in Hongkong and first in Guangzhou last year. Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur the previous year. Already hit Jakarta and some other islands in Indonesia. Done with Kyoto and Nagoya. Twice in Taiwan. All these without the benefit of lotto, not even a balik-taya.
But your travels are restricted to Asia, lotto’s hundreds of millions can easily take you to America…
Sorry, but been there, both coasts five times, six to include the territory of Guam. Disney and Universal, Broadway and Times Square, D.C. and Philly, Vegas and Atlantic City, Frisco and even those lovely enclaves in Rhode island I called God’s own little acre, I’ve experienced them all.
To Europe then…
Post-springtime, Paris still blooms in romance. Bonn with its famed university and Koln with its magnificent cathedral have that quiet elegance. Brussels is aptly named Little Paris…
You’ve been there too?
Yes, and smelled six million tulip bulbs of all colors in Keukenhof Garden in Lisse, Holland, walked the cobblestoned streets of The Hague, visited Madame Tussaud but got frustrated at the closed Van Gogh Museum around Dam Square and was blocked by a 300-pound, 6’8” bouncer from photographing the ladies of all races in various stages of undress encased in escaparates along the canal in De Wallen. Again, all these without having to win even just three digits in the lotto. They just happened.
Which means?
Which ultimately means I have no need for the lotto to live my life as I want to. Winning the lotto will just ruin it.
For as long as I can remember, I never dreamed of being moneyed. All I wanted in life since my childhood days are summed up thus: RTW – read, travel, write. Precisely what I do now. So why alter it, drastically and horrifically, with money?
As the Most Rev. Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz advised the unidentified lone winner of the P741-million jackpot on Tuesday: Pack up and go abroad.
Among Oscar’s personal sermon: "It's best for the person and his family to hide and go abroad. It would be better for him to hide than to risk his or her life here…This person is a pity because he should be very careful... because the money he will have came from a lot of people so therefore the money is not really his or her own because he did not work for it…The winner should also be careful about his safety together with his family because many will try to frighten and kidnap them for the money ... in short, the winner will lose because of these problems."
So why still desire that much money?
Desire is the root of all disappointments. A basic tenet from the dhammapada that can very well be the key to inner serenity, and in turn to world peace.
Finding resonance in John Lennon’s Imagine -- “…no possession/ I wonder if you can/nothing for greed or hunger/ a brotherhood of Man…”
And an affirmation in yet another nugget of Buddhist wisdom: “Happiness is not in getting what you want. It is in finding contentment with what you have.”
Oini ing bie. So I am happy.
So I told my coffee confederates at Starbucks SM City Clark at the height of the frenzied betting for the grand lotto.
They just could not believe that I could be so disinterested as to pass off this one-in-29-million-chance of being a multi-multi-millionaire. With none of them betting less than a thousand pesos in multi-multi-combinations at each failed draw.
My greed is not only moderate but very manageable. So I told them.
But with the winnings, you can buy lots of cars, said the espresso-dazed one.
So how many cars I got now? A vintage ’66 Beetle. A collector’s ’94 Crown. A stock Avanza. A first edition CRV. And an Andre Agassi-endorsed Sorento.
No brand new, no Range Rover, no Porsche or even just a BMW.
So what’s the need for those brands? My cars are as utilitarian. Where those luxe wheels go, they can take me too.
You don’t arrive in style as you’d do in them rich men’s cars.
So have you forgotten, style is the man? So who really needs cars?
Winning the lotto can take you places, travel the world over and over. It’s the cappuccino imbiber talking now.
So what have I been doing? Macau, Ho Chi Minh City, and a Singapore-Penang-Phuket star cruise this year. Fifth time in Hongkong and first in Guangzhou last year. Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur the previous year. Already hit Jakarta and some other islands in Indonesia. Done with Kyoto and Nagoya. Twice in Taiwan. All these without the benefit of lotto, not even a balik-taya.
But your travels are restricted to Asia, lotto’s hundreds of millions can easily take you to America…
Sorry, but been there, both coasts five times, six to include the territory of Guam. Disney and Universal, Broadway and Times Square, D.C. and Philly, Vegas and Atlantic City, Frisco and even those lovely enclaves in Rhode island I called God’s own little acre, I’ve experienced them all.
To Europe then…
Post-springtime, Paris still blooms in romance. Bonn with its famed university and Koln with its magnificent cathedral have that quiet elegance. Brussels is aptly named Little Paris…
You’ve been there too?
Yes, and smelled six million tulip bulbs of all colors in Keukenhof Garden in Lisse, Holland, walked the cobblestoned streets of The Hague, visited Madame Tussaud but got frustrated at the closed Van Gogh Museum around Dam Square and was blocked by a 300-pound, 6’8” bouncer from photographing the ladies of all races in various stages of undress encased in escaparates along the canal in De Wallen. Again, all these without having to win even just three digits in the lotto. They just happened.
Which means?
Which ultimately means I have no need for the lotto to live my life as I want to. Winning the lotto will just ruin it.
For as long as I can remember, I never dreamed of being moneyed. All I wanted in life since my childhood days are summed up thus: RTW – read, travel, write. Precisely what I do now. So why alter it, drastically and horrifically, with money?
As the Most Rev. Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz advised the unidentified lone winner of the P741-million jackpot on Tuesday: Pack up and go abroad.
Among Oscar’s personal sermon: "It's best for the person and his family to hide and go abroad. It would be better for him to hide than to risk his or her life here…This person is a pity because he should be very careful... because the money he will have came from a lot of people so therefore the money is not really his or her own because he did not work for it…The winner should also be careful about his safety together with his family because many will try to frighten and kidnap them for the money ... in short, the winner will lose because of these problems."
So why still desire that much money?
Desire is the root of all disappointments. A basic tenet from the dhammapada that can very well be the key to inner serenity, and in turn to world peace.
Finding resonance in John Lennon’s Imagine -- “…no possession/ I wonder if you can/nothing for greed or hunger/ a brotherhood of Man…”
And an affirmation in yet another nugget of Buddhist wisdom: “Happiness is not in getting what you want. It is in finding contentment with what you have.”
Oini ing bie. So I am happy.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 12:00 PM
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