When discussing life, new ideas and business ventures with friends and coworkers, one common sentiment that is thrown out there more times than I care to count is some mention of winning the lottery. Sometimes friends’ remarks deal with using the money for good, but more often they just talk about quitting work, buying extravagant stuff and living it up with no care for tomorrow. Really? Who the hell would want to live like this? Count me out.

You are probably acting all self-righteous about now, getting ready to feed me a line about how that money, if somehow won by you, would feed starving children in Africa, fund the cure for cancer and end all social and economic depressions as we know them. Sorry, but I am calling bullshit. But you can feel free to keep telling yourself that, if it helps you sleep at night. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having having money… and lots of it… but there are much better ways to go about getting it. Like creating a startup business, inventing a hot new product or being the best damn you that the world has ever seen. Self made is just more my style.

For those who are still not convinced, let me tell you a few reasons why you DON’T want to win it big with the lottery:

Winning The Lottery Makes People Lazy

As mentioned, the majority of people who talk about winning the lottery have visions of quitting their jobs, jet-setting to somewhere tropical and wasting their remaining days shopping, drinking overpriced mojitos and living it up. While these activities are completely fine when done in limited quantities, they should not be the goal to set for your life. In fact, we might as well call it what it is… laziness. And guess what? When the money runs out… and it usually always does… then what? Laziness is a hard thing from which to bounce back.

Winning The Lottery Makes People Stupid

While not always true, most people who win the lottery have very little knowledge on how to manage such a large sum of money. To many, any dollar amount that hits seven digits seems like so much that they convince themselves that it won’t ever run out. This makes people stupid with their decisions, their purchases and their winnings. I like to call it fast-money jackass syndrome. Basically, they buy everything in sight, with no thought of the cost, and simple math has them in bankruptcy just a few short years later.

Winning The Lottery Makes People Cursed

If you have followed some of the very many stories of individuals who won the lottery, you understand what this is about. Sad stories of overnight millionaires that overdosed on drugs, good people who lost their families, and quite a few tales of strange death occurrences that support the truth of the whole lottery curse business. While winning the lottery was more than likely not the only factor in sealing the fate of these poor people, it definitely played a part.

If you are still hell-bent on your dreams of instant wealth, then go right ahead and buy that ticket. But when you look at countless money wasted without any big win to show, or worse yet, you win big and end up a sad statistic, don’t say that I didn’t warn you. For everyone else, I’ll see you in the tropics spending money that we got the easy way… by working for it.