Feel Better For A Buck – Guaranteed
If you watch even a small amount of local television, the stuff you can get on cable and for free over-the-air, one, you are part of an audience in decline, and two, you probably have noticed an influx of lottery and gambling ads.
Outside of the automotive industry, lotteries and gaming must be television's largest advertising category, or so it seems.
They are spending millions of dollars to show us how much better our lives could be – like we don't already know. Fewer groceries cost more. Threadbare clothes must last longer. For possibly the first time in generations, generations of people have stopped dreaming of being first-time home owners.
And for as little as one dollar, your entire world could change; but you can't win if you don't play.
What does it say about today? About this time in which we are living?
We have just experienced one of the most unsettling periods in recent history and it has been made worse by extremely negative social discourse, a growing disregard for others, a disdain and even hate for the other side, misanthropy, and not "fake news" but outright lies being treated as news by real and fake media.
What does that say about us? Clearly someone, or some people, believe that we will pretty much buy anything, figuratively and literally, that we can be manipulated – are being manipulated – and it's not only okay, it's good for their bottom line. Maybe this has always been the case, but it's never been truer.
In place of solutions, we are being ghosted, peddled excuses, and sold false hope.
Are people so dispirited, that selling the dream of winning a big payday – which is an outright lie to 99.9 percent of us – is the way out of the situation? People aren't dreaming of winning; they're hoping to survive.
You may never have won a jackpot, but, by today’s standards, if you can afford a home, utilities, and a fridge full of food, you’re one of the lucky ones.
There are over ten thousand people in Toronto who are homeless on any given night; 75 percent are male and many are in their 50s, 60s and older. Some are working poor; they have a job, but it doesn’t pay enough to make ends meet. Some can’t work. Others cannot find work; no one is hiring 60-year-olds.
Every day in downtown Toronto, hundreds of homeless men gather at Haven Toronto, a drop-in centre that provides healthy meals, access to showers and laundry, emergency clothing, free WIFI, a space to socialize, and a place to get your mail. To the majority of people in Toronto, these basic necessities are a given. To clients of Haven Toronto, they are luxuries.
Needless to say, winning a grand prize, eight thousand square foot home is not a priority for someone who is homeless – their prime concern is finding their next meal or a safe place to sleep.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over
and expecting different results.” –Albert Einstein
When week-after-week you buy a lottery ticket knowing that you are not going to win, hoping that you do, and then feeling disappointed when you don’t – you are not alone. There are millions of people who gaming organizations are banking on losing, while trying to sell the idea that, “When we play together, we win together.”
Instead of spending your money, having nothing to show for it, and feeling bad, consider spending your money, having nothing to show for it, and feel great for a change.
Between now and May 13th – the only Friday the 13th in 2022 – donate to Haven Toronto. Spend one dollar at www.shophaventoronto.ca buying a meal for an elder homeless man and feel truly lucky for what you have. Jackpot!
