Most days, I spend at least two minutes thinking about how great it would be to win the lottery. I think about it when I’m looking at my bills, or when I’m debating whether to buy a $.99 app, or when I have to do my laundry and I’m all “you know what would be great? If I could just afford to pay someone to take months worth of dirty clothes and magically clean and fold them outside of my view.” I think about how happy I’d be, how much pizza I’d eat, and where I would put the hot tub I would immediately install in the mansion I bought. They’re good daydreams. And you’ve probably had them, too.
But guess what: Apparently winning the lottery sucks.Of course, we’ve known for a while that being a lottery winner isn’t easy. There are relatives who suddenly show up out of nowhere to demand you pay for surgeries, bad investments, and the high tax costs, but one woman says it’s even worse than all that. Appearing on Loose Women ITV, Jane Park, who won approximate $1.6 million four years ago (when she was 17), spoke about how winning the lottery hadn’t actually made her happy. In fact, it made her miserable because even when she became rich, none of her problems went away.
From the interview, via Cosmopolitan:
“I never realised how difficult it would be,” Jane said. “I thought everything would be amazing when in there were times where it was just completely different to what you expect it to be like… There’s a part of it that is, like, going shopping and getting all the handbags and having all the money. And then there are other times when it’s the opposite.”
Unfortunately, handbags can’t keep you warm at night, and, according to The Washington Post, Park says she actually wishes she hadn’t won. She probably doesn’t mean that — one day she’ll look back on these interviews and probably cringe — because it’s always good to have money, but it’s certainly created problems. She can’t find a boyfriend who she’s not sure just wants her for her money, for instance. Even though the company that runs the lottery tried to help her, setting her up with a financial adviser and even connecting her to another winner close to her age to help her through, none of their efforts seemed to work. It’s gotten so bad, she says, that she’s actually considering suing the company for allowing her to play at 16, saying that the age limit should be raised.
Hold up, though: Wouldn’t suing do the exact opposite of what you want, Jane Park? If you win, you’ve got even more money! What are you going to do with that? How will you ever survive? Honestly, I only wish I had this woman’s problems, and I bet there are many people out there who are thinking the same. What would the lawsuit even look like? The only reason that we shouldn’t let 16-year-olds play, it seems, is the fact that they end up causing PR nightmares when they go on talk shows to complain about their vast riches.
Even though Park says she’s unhappy much of the time and has received a lot of backlash for speaking out about winning, she says that she doesn’t want to give her money away. That’s smart, because she’ll need it one day. And she’ll likely find out that a million bucks isn’t that much money to begin with, especially if you aren’t investing. Let’s hope someone helps her out. Us, though, we’ll still be dreaming about winning, right?