What would you do if you won one million euros? Would
you quit your job? Would you take a year off from work and travel? If you
decided to travel for a year would you take your children with you or would you
leave them at home with a babysitter1? I think that just about
everyone thinks about winning one million euros; this is why the lottery is so
popular. I don’t think that many people play the lottery because they dream
about winning fifty euros. Only a person without ambition would dream of
winning fifty euros.
Should people dream about winning the lottery or is
this a waste of time? I think that dreaming about winning only fifty euros is a
complete waste of time. If you won 50€ it wouldn’t change your life, at least
it wouldn’t change your life very much. With 50€ you could buy ten gin and
tonics. This could change your life but only if you think that a hangover is a
life changing event. If you won one million euros you could buy enough
gin and tonics to have a hangover every day for the rest of your life. If
your dream is to have a hangover every day for the rest of your life then I
think that you probably should find another dream, but I would never tell you
what you should do with your money.
When most people think about what they would do with
one million euros they think about stuff they would buy, stuff like cars and
boats and houses and clothes. If I won one million euros I would get rid of2
a lot of the stuff that I have. I want less stuff. If I won the lottery I would
take all of my electronic gadgets3 and throw them off my balcony. I
would really love to throw my television from my balcony. If I were a
millionaire I would never look at a computer for the rest of my life. If I were
rich I wouldn’t need to work and I wouldn’t need a computer or a phone. I
would never listen to music on an MP3 player. With one million euros I could
pay a symphony orchestra to follow me around all day and play any song I wanted
to hear. I would never talk on the phone ever again. If my friends and
family wanted to talk to me they would have to come to my house and talk to me in
person. I would only write with a paper and pen, a gold pen with gold ink.
The next thing that I would do would be to buy a really
good jamón Serrano. If I were a millionaire I wouldn’t have to buy a paleta
from Mercadona, I would buy a really good ham. I would pay someone to cut
the ham for me because I’m not very good at cutting ham. I would pay another
person to bring the ham from the jamonero over to me on the sófa because
if I were rich I wouldn’t ever leave the sofa...ever. The guy cutting the ham could
bring me the slices4 of ham but he couldn’t cut very much ham if he
had to walk over to the sofa every minute.
Most of the things that I want in life I can’t buy. I
would like to speak Spanish and French but you can’t buy a language like
letters on Wheel of Fortune (La Rueda de la Suerte).
People say that you should live your dreams today
because you probably aren’t going to win one million euros. If your dream
is to travel then you should travel. If you have always wanted to paint pictures
then you should start painting pictures. Instead of dreaming about winning the
lottery and waiting forever for our dreams to come true we should live our
dreams now. I think tomorrow I will throw my television off the balcony. I may do it today.
1)
Babysitter - Kanguro
2)
To Get Rid of = Eliminar
3)
Gadget – Aparato
4)
Slice – loncha (rebanada de pan)