Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself

Jack Whittaker, the largest lotto winner in history, winning $314.9
million was in the news recently claiming he is broke...just a few
years after winning his fortune on Christmas 2002. Just like any other
rich and famous celebrities life, his family was put under a microscope
as well after winning the money. I have followed his life with some
interest, as I run into so many people that think money is the only
reason they are unhappy. So I like to follow up on people that get
their wish to riches and see how they turn out.

Jack has had many problems and tragedies in his life since December 25,
2002. I recall hearing about his beloved granddaughters death from drug
overdose. Jack had bought her 15 cars, but it seems that 15 cars was
not enough to make her happy, content and keep her alive. Jack has
bounced checks at Atlantic City, N.J., casinos and was robbed at an
adult strip bar a while back. Another report on the news had charges
being brought up against him for threatening the life of a bartender
after being banned from the bar for being unruly. Then he was picked up
and arrested for DUI. A young man was also mysteriously found dead at
his house. Jacks wife says she wished she had torn up that winning
ticket and never cashed it. Well, money is not bad or good, money is
stored energy and it is people that do bad or good things with money.
But I can say positively that money cannot buy happiness...money can
only buy distractions.

We can also see this same phenomena in the news with Mel Gibson's
latest episode of drunk driving and anti semitic remarks. They said Mel
made 30 to 40 million dollars from his Jesus movie. I guess it wasn't
enough for him to 'buy' some peace. I am not writing about Jack or Mel
to badmouth them or break their anonymity, since all this is public
record and on the news. I am writing about this topic to underscore the
facts that as James Allen tells us in "As A Man Thinketh" -
"Circumstances does not make the man - it reveals him to himself" As
such, money cannot buy happiness and it especially can never buy peace
and serenity. Many of us put our happiness and hopes of peace on hold
until we would come into a windfall, maybe not as extreme as Jacks
windfall, but we put things on hold none the same and cannot find
happiness and peace where we are at.

The branch of philosophy that deals with such questions goes back to
the early Greek philosophers and the study of virtue and ethics. Some
authorities define virtue as 'excellence of the soul' or moral
excellence. (Although the Greeks thought of 'soul and form' in
different terms than say Christians think of soul. For example, the
soul of an eye would be its ability to 'see' and whether this ability
was good or bad would decide whether the soul of an eye had 'virtue' or
excellence.) The concept of understanding virtue can be told in a story
of the 'Ring of Gyges' or 'Myth of Gyges'. This story was taken from
Plato's Republic and recounts how the shepherd Gyges finds a ring on a
hand extending from a crack in the earth and removes the ring from the
hand and puts it on. Gyges discovers the magic ring gives him powers to
be invisible at will and then uses these powers to kill the king, rape
the queen and take over the kingdom.

In readily understandable terms we can define virtue for us from this
story of Gyges and ask ourselves the question, "What would we do if no
one was looking or we knew we would not get caught?" No heaven, no
hell, no karma, no police, nothing but us and our virtue? Would our
actions promote our inner peace as well as the inner peace of others or
would our actions destroy our peace and the peace of others? Take away
the fear of pain of karma or hell and you have a different person? A
truly virtuous life remains the same irrespective of such fears and is
not based on them

Virtue is not learned from the classroom, other than memorizing
definitions. Remember, a fool can only say what he knows ~ it takes a
wise man to know what he says. How do we become a success at living a
virtuous life and really know what we say? As a lecture on Aristotle
mentioned: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an
act but a habit." We develop it by practice. Practicing 'excellence of
the human soul' is how.

Is money all that is holding you back from happiness? Here is an
interesting story about some lotto winners that found out that it is
true as to what I wrote in my earlier post on virtue "circumstances do
not make the man - they reveal him to himself." In a nutshell, it all
boils down to what an old sponsor told me in DA many years ago. "If we
are spiritually sick we will find a way to get rid of the money no
matter what."

This was posted at AOL Personal Finance - no anonymity has been broken
and it is all public record

By ELLEN GOODSTEIN

For a lot of people, winning the lottery is the American dream. But for
many lottery winners, the reality is more like a nightmare.

"Winning the lottery isn't always what it's cracked up to be," says
Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey lottery not just once but twice
(1985, 1986) to the tune of $5.4 million. Today the money is all gone
and Adams lives in a trailer.

"I won the American dream but I lost it, too. It was a very hard fall.
It's called rock bottom," says Adams.

"Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out. I never
learned one simple word in the English language -- 'No.' I wish I had
the chance to do it all over again. I'd be much smarter about it now,"
says Adams who also lost money at the slot machines in Atlantic City.

"I was a big time gambler," admits Adams. "I didn't drop a million
dollars, but it was a lot of money. I made mistakes, some I regret,
some I don't. I'm human. I can't go back now so I just go forward, one
step at a time."

Living on food stamps
William "Bud" Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in
1988 but now lives on his Social Security.

"I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare," says Post.

A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings.
It wasn't his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man
to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings
pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a
restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., -- two ventures that brought no money
back and further strained his relationship with his siblings.

Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill
collector.

Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.

Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please his
family. He eventually declared bankruptcy.

Now he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps.

"I'm tired, I'm over 65 years old, and I just had a serious operation
for a heart aneurysm. Lotteries don't mean [anything] to me," says
Post.

Deeper in debt
Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the Virginia lottery in 1993. Now
she's deeply in debt to a company that lent her money using the
winnings as collateral.

She borrowed $197,746.15, which she agreed to pay back with her yearly
checks from the Virginia lottery through 2006. But, when the rules
changed allowing her to collect her winnings in a lump sum, she cashed
in the remaining amount. But, she stopped making payments on the loan.

She blamed the debt on the lengthy illness of her uninsured son-in-law
who needed $1 million for medical bills.

Mark Kidd, the Roanoke, Va., lawyer who represented the Singer Asset
Finance Company who sued Mullins, confirms. He won a judgment for the
company against Mullins for $154,147 last May, but they have yet to
collect a nickel.

"My understanding is she has no assets," says Kidd.
Back to the basics
Ken Proxmire was a machinist when he won $1 million in the Michigan
lottery. He moved to California, went into the car business with his
brothers and within five years, Ken had filed for bankruptcy.

"He was just a poor boy who got lucky and wanted to take care of
everybody," explains Ken's son Rick.

"It was a hell of a good ride for three or four years, but now he lives
more simply. There's no more talk of owning a helicopter or riding in
limos. We're just everyday folk. Dad's now back to work as a
machinist," says his son.

Willie Hurt of Lansing, Mich., won $3.1 million in 1989. Two years
later he was broke and charged with murder. His lawyer says Hurt spent
his fortune on a divorce and crack cocaine.

Charles Riddle of Belleville, Mich., won $1 million in 1975. Afterward,
he got divorced, faced several lawsuits and was indicted for selling
cocaine.

Missourian Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993. Lee was generous to a
variety of causes, particularly politics, education and the community.
But according to published reports, eight years after winning, Lee had
filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left in two bank accounts and no
cash on hand.

One Southeastern family won $4.2 million in the early '90s. They bought
a huge house and succumbed to repeated family requests for help in
paying off debts.

The house, cars and relatives ate the whole pot. Eleven years later,
the couple is divorcing, the house is sold, and they have to split what
is left of the lottery proceeds. The wife got a very small house and
the husband has moved in with the kids. Even the life insurance they
bought ended up getting cashed in.

"It was not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," says their
financial advisor.

Luck is fleeting
These sad-but-true tales are not uncommon, say the experts.

"For many people, sudden money can cause disaster," says Susan Bradley,
a certified financial planner in Palm Beach, Fla., and founder of the
Sudden Money Institute, a resource center for new money recipients and
their advisors.

"In our culture, there is a widely held belief that money solves
problems. People think if they had more money, their troubles would be
over. When a family receives sudden money, they frequently learn that
money can cause as many problems as it solves," she says.

Craig Wallace, a senior funding officer for a company that buys lottery
annuity payments in exchange for lump sums, agrees.

"Going broke is a common malady, particularly with the smaller winners.
Say you've won $1 million. What you've really won is a promise to be
paid $50,000 a year. People win and they think they're millionaires.
They go out and buy houses and cars and before they know it, they're in
way over their heads," he says.

Are you really a 'millionaire'?
Part of the problem is that the winners buy into the hype.

"These people believe they are millionaires. They buy into the hype,
but most of these people will go to their graves without ever becoming
a millionaire," says Wallace, who has been in the business for almost a
decade.

"In New Jersey, they manipulate the reality of the situation to sell
more tickets. Each winner takes a picture with a check that becomes a
3-foot by 5-foot stand-up card. The winner is photographed standing
next to a beautiful woman and the caption reads: 'New Jersey's newest
millionaire.'"

Winning plays a game with your head
Bradley, who authored "Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall,"
says winners get into trouble because they fail to address the
emotional connection to the windfall.

"There are two sides to money. The interior side is the psychology of
money and the family relationship to money. The exterior side is the
tax codes, the money allocation, etc."

"The goal is to integrate the two. People who can't integrate their
interior relationship with money appropriately are more likely to crash
and burn," says Bradley.

"Often they can keep the money and lose family and friends -- or lose
the money and keep the family and friends -- or even lose the money and
lose the family and friends."

Bill Pomeroy, a certified financial planner in Baton Rouge, La., has
dealt with a number of lottery winners who went broke.

"Because the winners have a large sum of money, they make the mistake
of thinking they know what they're doing. They are willing to plunk
down large sums on investments they know nothing about or go in with a
partner who may not know how to run a business."

What if you get so (un)lucky?
To offset some bad early-decision making and the inevitable requests of
friends, relatives and strangers, Bradley recommends lottery winners
start by setting up a DFZ or decision-free zone.

"Take time out from making any financial decisions," she says. "Do this
right away. For some people, it's smart to do it before you even get
your hands on the money.

"People who are not used to having money are fragile and vulnerable,
and there are plenty of people out there who are willing to prey on
that vulnerability -- even friends and family," she cautions.

"It's not a time to decide what stocks to buy or jump into a new house
purchase or new business venture.

"It's a time to think things through, sort things out and seek an
advisory team to help make those important financial choices."

As an example, Bradley says that on a list on 12 things people who come
into a windfall will spend money on, buying a house is at the top of
the list while investing is number 11.

"You really don't want to buy a new house before taking the time to
think about what the consequences are.

"A lot of people who don't have money don't realize how much it costs
to live in a big house -- decorators, furniture, taxes, insurance, even
utility costs are greater. People need a reality check before they sign
the contract," she says.

Evelyn Adams, the N.J. lottery double-winner, learned these lessons the
hard way.

"There are a lot of people out there like me who don't know how to deal
with money," laments Adams. "Hey, some people went broke in six months.
At least I held on for a few years."

Take care,

V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2