Sudden Millionaire

I remember an activity that a teacher had us do back in either third or fourth grade. She told us to draw what we would do with a million dollars. Thinking back on this activity, I believe it had something to do with learning about pollution and the environment. We all immediately started drawing our dream lives, with some going so far as to draw entire city skyscrapers that he/she owned. We were all young, and could not properly conceive what it would be like to be a millionaire. Each of us frantically drew rectangles and stick figure people.

When the time was up, we put our markers and pencils down. Then, one by one we reported out to our teacher what we had drawn. What things had our adolescent brains focused on. For the majority of us, we had drawn mansion style homes with a hundred rooms. Our mother or father lived in this room. This room held our collection of video games, this was a room with all the animals we bought with our money. In short, even with all our endless money in this scenario, we had crammed as much stuff into these dream homes as possible. We beamed smiles displaying our perfect visions of what we each thought it looked like to be rich. A home that was stuffed to the gills with stuff. There were of course outliers, amidst the sea of consumer driven minds, with every now and then one of us displaying a cabin in the woods, a lake house to go fishing every afternoon. But these were the minority. In general, we filled our paper with stuff. We were kids after all, and a million dollars was not something real to any of us. Our teacher could have told us to simply disregard money and draw what you want to own when you are an adult.

None of us were concerned with taxes or insurance. No in our minds, we had all the money anyone could ever need, and therefore we were all intent on maximizing it to the fullest. Not a single one of us uttered a word of investing or ways we might use this sudden windfall to increase our net worth. We were each given an endless wallet, and we could rely on that wallet to give us everything we could ever hope to have. I wanted to share this story because it stands out vividly in my mind. Not for the intended purpose as our teacher evaluated our pollution output from our future dreams, but it stands out to me currently because we were all concerned with stuff. We all had it in our mind that to be successful and rich meant to own as much as you possibly could. We all had mansion style homes, cities, countries, that were now in our possession. And the first thing that each of thought to do with it was to fill it up with stuff.

If we were to take a practical look at the costs of maintaining such opulence, we would likely find, that like so many lottery winners, we would have each ended up bankrupt. This is to be expected though when kids are given money. A fistful of shiny nickels needs to be spent. Sticks of gum need to be chewed. And, to a degree, endorphins need to be triggered. But would in actuality, having a giant home, that was packed to the point, where you can barely move through the house, without tripping over a gold-plated bicycle. Is any of that worth it? Does having all those things that fill up your home, do they bring you any kind of peace of mind? I believe it would instill a tremendous amount of anxiety as each of those things would need to be counted for. How many hours would you spend in terror of someone taking your stuff? How many times would you have to check to confirm the front door was locked? Would your mind be wrecked with worry over the thought that the oven was left on and all your possessions were now slowly burning? Would you ever be truly present if you had so much stuff that you worried about?

I am certain the answer is different for everyone, but what’s the mental cost of ownership? How much of those items that we crammed into the closets and windows did we actually use? How much of it was merely to display as badges of our sudden wealth? I have no doubt that if we were asked to perform a similar task, more of us would draw manageable homes with a few selective items that would bring value rather than take up space in our homes and minds.