The Lottery of Life

It started with a dinner in Costa Rica with my wife Becca. A meal of banana leaf steamed red snapper. A look across the table. And a blurted-out declaration: "I won the lottery in life."

The thought had been building all day. Earlier that afternoon, a sea turtle swam past me during an open water swim. Two bright blue starfish appeared a few strokes later. Those moments sparked a memory of catching a blue lobster while lobstering years ago. The odds of that are roughly 1 in 2,000,000.

But the real thread wasn't about rare sightings. It was about lotteries. Or I should say, life lotteries.

Every time you invest your time in something, you're buying a ticket. Going lobstering is a ticket for the chance to catch something extraordinary. Going open water swimming is a ticket for the chance to see something you've never seen before. Sitting down to dinner with someone you love is a ticket for a moment that takes your breath away.

The question that kept surfacing was this: who actually says, "I won the lottery in life"? It doesn't seem to be the uber-wealthy. It seems to be people who've looked around at what they have and felt the full weight of it. People who aren't always reaching for more.

The difference isn't often circumstance. It's orientation. Some people have everything and feel like they have nothing. Some people have far less and feel like they've won.

Maybe that's the insight. People who feel like they've won the life lottery aren't lucky. They're paying attention.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org