Lottery ticket and awareness!

I just bought a lottery ticket that has a bumper prize of ₹20 crore (200 million)!

One of my friends called me, and during the conversation mentioned that he was travelling through Palakkad.
That’s when I remembered about Kerala lotteries and casually asked him to buy one for me.
He was just about to cross the border when this conversation happened, so he managed to buy one.

Mulling over this incident later, a few interesting aspects stood out.

Here we go.

First, the event itself was ordinary.
A phone call.
A passing thought.
A ticket was bought.

But the mind doesn’t stop there.
It quietly starts adding meaning.

What if this is lucky?
What if this changes everything?

That’s where awareness becomes useful.

1. Event vs Meaning

What happens
vs
What you add to it

• Event: A ticket is bought. A number is drawn.
• Meaning added: “This will change my life.”

Awareness move:
Notice the story I attach to neutral events.

Freedom begins when I recognize the difference between reality and the narrative surrounding it.

 

2. Hope vs Dependence
Hope is light and playful.
Dependence quietly steals sleep.

• Hope says, “Nice if it happens.”
• Dependence says, “I need this to feel okay.”

Awareness move:
Ask quietly:

If this doesn’t happen, what inside me tightens?

That tightening is where awareness needs to sit, not on the outcome.

3. Control vs Influence
I don’t control random numbers.
But I do influence how much mental space I give them.

Lotteries, other people’s behavior, sudden events → outside control.

Awareness move:
Withdraw energy from what I can’t control
and redeploy it into daily regulation:

• breath
• posture
• response
• timing

This alone reduces mental clutter.

 

4. Attachment vs Presence
Attachment pulls attention into the future.
Presence brings it back, right now.

Awareness move:
The ticket is still just a ticket.
But the observation changed something.

Awareness is not about predicting outcomes.
It is about not outsourcing my peace to probability.

 

And then I remembered a few lines from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle:

“If you are dissatisfied with what you have got, or even frustrated or angry about your present lack, that may motivate you to become rich, but even if you do make millions, you will continue to experience the inner condition of lack, and deep down you will continue to feel unfulfilled.”

A micro-practice I use:
When a hopeful or anxious thought arises, pause and say -
“This is a thought, not a fact.”

*****

 

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