And that dream lasts right up until you check the numbers.
That’s the part rational investors tend to miss … the power of dreaming.
And I’ll admit it - I play the lottery too, even though I already live a pretty comfortable life.
Dreaming does cost nothing.
It's fun to look at the kinda house you could buy if you had €5 million in the bank. Even though I'd never have that much, and even if I did I wouldn't spend it on such a thing.
That's a habit I picked up when I lived in the UK and I played their national lottery once every month or so.
(/r/SpottedonRightmove/ is also a fun sub if you like this kinda thing; "right move" is a UK estate agents chain.)
I’ve personally had thoughts about what I would do if I were millionaire, and given the amount of stories of people coming into a large sums of money and their life getting significantly worse, I’d prefer to actually not win it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
Presumably its easier to dream when there is an unpredictable outcome, rather than knowing you have to wake up tomorrow to spend the day driving around and pissing in bottles. An outside force that could change circumstances is a better feeling than knowing that really isn't any way of changing your career when you can't go to school because you can't afford it.
> Presumably its easier to dream when there is an unpredictable outcome
Anecdotally, I know almost no one who plays the lottery, but almost everyone at some point has shared an “if I won the lottery” dream. Playing isn’t a prerequisite. It’s not too different from dreaming of becoming a rockstar when you can’t even play an instrument. Most of us have some version of that, no money necessary.