Progressive Thoughts - Day 26

Today’s song is one of my favourites, if not THE favourite, song from Pink Floyd. The song is Money and comes from the top selling album Dark Side of the Moon.

People think that this song is about how brilliant money is but let me squash that misconception right here. The song is in fact about how bad money can be and if you listen carefully to the lyrics it is obvious.

I would love to have lots and lots of money but the only reason is that it would free me of the shackles of work and allow me to escape the rat race.

I don’t want much – just enough to live comfortably, travel and buy the things that will make me content. I would not want to be a multibillionaire with so much money that I could wallpaper my house in £50 notes – that way madness lies.

It amazes me exactly how much money the world’s richest people have. What on earth would you do with it all? And how can such people live with themselves when they see extreme poverty?

I’m not suggesting for a second that all rich people are greedy selfish arses; in fact I know of some whose philanthropy is legendary.

Take Bill Gates for example. He has made billions from Microsoft and but now focusses on philanthropy and in total has given away around 30% of his fortune to charitable causes. Mind you, he still has billions left – but I can’t fault him for his morality and generosity.

I honestly don’t know what I would do if I was worth as much as some of these hugely wealthy people. I think I would follow the example of people like Bill Gates and hand it out to people whose life would be improved.

This doesn’t stop me from trying to win the National Lottery, although sometimes the top prize is much more than I can imagine owning. At the time of writing, the jackpot for the National Lottery is a cool £12 million and for the Euromillions lottery it is a whopping £62 million.

While such sums would be a drop in the ocean for people like Bill Gates, such sums would be life changing for a nobody like me.

That said, I do have a plan if by a miracle my numbers come up. I would have to thrash out the details with Mrs PM who would no doubt impose her own constraints on my new found wealth but ultimately I would get my own way.

I won’t bore you with the detail but suffice it to say that it would involve resigning immediately from my job and then jetting off on a first class round the world trip armed with a huge box of notebooks and lots of pens to make notes for a colossal travelogue.

To be fair, I probably wouldn’t even need the full £12 million and I would give a lot of it away.

I have never believed people who say that an injection of such amount of cash will not change them. Some people in the past have won lots of cash and carried on with their day jobs, which I simply cannot understand. As I’ve said, for me it would mean freedom and a way to escape the negative aspects of my life.

That said, I’ve read enough about people who have suddenly become rich and changed their life so much that they wished they hadn’t won. That I can understand because suddenly you wouldn’t necessarily know who your friends are and there might be some resentment. I heard a case of a chap who bought a huge house and moved away from where he lived and then became miserable because he lost a lot of his friends and became isolated, maybe because he became a bit of a diva.

I wouldn’t want that to happen as all and I would try my best to protect my current life (apart from work). For that reason I would remain anonymous and simply tell family, friends and colleagues that I had “come into some money” without specifying how much.

You will never see me popping a champagne cork whilst holding a huge cheque for £12 million, dear reader.

Sadly, that’s almost because I will never, ever win.

Still, I can dream, can’t I?