Heather Allen

I have been dreaming of having $1.6 billion dollars. This is not a normal amount of money. And knowing myself, I know I should choose the annuity payout option because getting a giant amount of money upfront would not work well with my spending habits. It’s like I know I have the money and that just makes me want to spend it all. Like I haven’t learned anything from being an adult with a paycheck…

$1 billion dollars is just so far away from what I could imagine. I would pay off all my student loans, my credit card debt, my boyfriend’s student loans. Probably buy a new car for my mom.

Then I’d buy a house. Maybe in New York, maybe somewhere else.

I’d quit my job. I’d set up my safety net of how my money should be managed so it would keep growing, rather than spend it all.

And then I’d travel all over the world.

But what happens after that? Do I have dreams that I should be following? Do I have anything else I could be doing? I’d have the time and money to pursue anything. And that’s where I start to freak out. Because it’s easy to solve all my immediate money needs and all my immediate fixes, but what about the stuff after that? What is it that I want out of life? And why can’t I do those things right now, in some small way?

I can give myself some credit here. I’m sure I will absorb and love all the travel adventures. And perhaps that will lead me down some sort of path of spiritual and self awareness of my life goals. However, as I think about where I am in life now, I come up short for inspiration.

I think I could write a book or go back to school for something like an MFA or MBA, but what’s stopping me from considering these option now? I could make the time to write a book now. I could start in a small way by reading books on writing and business. And making business plans to start my own publishing company. Are these my goals now? Would they be my goals if I didn’t have any financial burdens?

My point is that even if you have a billion dollars or a million dollars or zero dollars, having a goal in life is always important. It’s something worth striving for. I’m sort of at a crossroads now where I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my career and my life, but I could do more and I could have more of a focus.

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