When you should absolutely play the lotto, and how to get over feeling deprived

Happy Friday!

I feel like all I've been hearing about for the past few days is this $640 million dollar (it keeps getting bigger) Mega Millions jackpot spanning 42 states.

People who usually don't play the lottery are even giving themselves a chance for this one.

The odds of winning the lottery are = to you going up to a random person, and guessing their 10 digit phone number. Crazy odds, indeed.

Does anyone play to win? Or do they play so they can DREAM about winning? (That's worth the few bucks in it of itself.)

What would you do if you won $640 million dollars?

I digress.

So, my friends are playing the Mega Millions and asked me if I wanted to join in.

I reluctantly said yes. Why?

Because the ONLY reason why I'm playing is to prevent pain. If somehow, miraculously, my friends bought the winning ticket, I'd be pretty, pretty, pretty upset.

I'm essentially buying myself insurance to prevent pain. Not that I wouldn't be happy for my friends...I'd be thrilled for them BUT to know I would have ALSO won, had I just handed over a few bucks...THAT would be painful.

Us human animals are far more sensitive to loss than gain. This is known as loss aversion.

Which leads us into...FOMO.

FOMO - is very real.

FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out.

Some people will never, ever, miss something in fear that they'll be missing out on something great.

Here's the thing: we're always missing out on things! That is life. It's impossible to do everything. We have to make choices, of course. Some choices cause more regret than others, though...

When it's very real..."I could have WON!!! had I just playeddd!!!" it becomes a lot more painful.

So what the heck does this have to do with anything health/fitness related?

I'll tell you...

Let's say there is a cookie in front of us.

There are many psychological reasons why we want to eat it. One of them being that we don't want to feel deprived because everyone ELSE is partaking.

Here's the thing:  In THE moment, we're only focusing on the discomfort of not eating that cookie. We're thinking highly irrationally, and because we feel that we DESERVE the cookie, and that we're ENTITLED to it -- because we work so hard -- our short term/irrational mind is egging us on. "You deserve the cookie!" "How come everyone else gets to eat the cookie?" "This isn't fair."

But, of course, in the moment, we don't think about ALL that we're giving up.

Let us not forget: We also want to feel and look healthy and energized and reach our health and fitness goals.

Again, this is our fear of loss happening in real time. We're only focused on what we're NOT getting to have right then and there because we don't want to feel deprived.

Here's what I try to remind myself: If I give into the discomfort (instead of embracing it) and listen to my short term / irrational mind, I'm also depriving myself of getting to feel awesome.

And thankfully, the discomfort from not eating the cookie IS fleeting. It's actually as fleeting as the pleasure we get from eating the cookie. Think about that for a second.

The second...the MOMENT...we're done eating that cookie, the pleasurable feelings we get vanish. THAT is exactly why sugar/salt/fat is addicting. We need more and more of it to get that dopamine spike.

If we choose to indulge our irrational mind because we don't want to feel deprived, we're actually depriving ourselves of our long term goals and true desires that'll bring us far more happiness than 5 minutes of pleasure.

And when we look back on our healthy choices we never regret them. When we look back on our unhealthy choices we usually do regret them. UNLESS, they're memorable.

IF something is memorable, go for it. But savor it. Pretend you're a NY Times food critic while you're eating it.

And IF your friends are playing Mega Millions, play with them.

-Adam

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