Return on Life: What if YOU won the lottery?

There was a fascinating wire report recently about a man in Wales who had won a $2.6 million lottery jackpot. He had been employed at a McDonald's, and of course immediately quit. Not surprising--who would want to work at McDonald's with a net worth of $2.6 million? Turns out, actually he did. After 18 months enjoying the winnings, he went back to his old job because he missed his co-workers. So many stories of lottery winners have such unhappy endings--money spent within a matter of a few years, drugs and other problems cropping up. My bet is that 20 years down the road, this young man will still have the money (and more!). If he can, within 18 months, adjust to that huge a change in his life, he is centered enough in himself to weather just about any storm--good or bad!

Amazingly, he's only 25 years old, but he has wisdom beyond his years. He returned to the McDonald's job because he missed his old friends. Some of you are thinking "Is he nuts? He could spend the rest of his life just travelling around the world, doing whatever he wanted to do. The whole point is, he now is doing what he wants to do. It just happens to create income for him rather than cost money. For him, that doesn't put his McDonald's job in the undesirable category, and hooray for him for realizing it. I imagine he received lots of suggestions to go the spending route. He was smart enough to realize what made him happy, and return to it, before he lost his way in life. By doing so, he's provided a great lesson in being "self-referent"--looking inwardly for guidance and not letting others get him off track.

Think about it: What would you do if you won $2.6 million in the lottery? What's truly important to you?