If I Had a Million Dollars

What a fun game - to imagine what you would do if you had a million dollars. Anything you wanted (as long as it is legal, of course). Graduate school perhaps? Buy a great house? Get a new car? Hey - maybe travel for an entire year! Say a new country every month (okay, Spain and Italy get two months each - those places are huge!). Ride freighters all over the world. Buy an around the world ticket. Start a non-profit. Fund a non-profit. Start a business. Run for office The possibilities are endless, really.

What a dangerous game. Dangerous? Yes. Because if you could do that with a million dollars, why can't you do it now? I can hear the denials piling up in my brain as I type that. What about the debt I already have? How would I, could I ever do any of that without that money? Still, I have to believe that if I put my mind to it, I could do it. Maybe it would take some work and planning and research and organization. But I am pretty sure that I could do it. Sure, I might fall flat on my face during the execution of it, and yet wouldn't it be fun - or at least exhilarating - to try?

I keep reading all these books on the 'new economy,' ones that tell me that the time is now to take chances. Ones that say that rarely has there been a better time to start a business or take a risk. And maybe I am falling for the propaganda. Still, there is something in there that sounds plausible to me. That maybe, just maybe I don't actually need a million dollars, that I don't need to win the lottery to make my dreams come true. Maybe all I need is to actually act on my dreams. Really, it's kind of like the slogan you always hear for that self same lottery - you can't win if you don't play.