It sure is fun to kick a guy when he's down, and even more fun to keep kicking him once he begins to bleed.
I fully realize that Mr. Whittaker has made some poor choices, but who among us hasn't?
Don't bother responding to tell us what you would have done with the money, because the simple fact is, you don't know what you'd do. None of us on the forum has ever won that much money, nor has anyone else, since Whittaker's was the largest PowerBall jackpot in history. You're all right about one thing, though; what goes around comes around. I hope you'll remember this the next time you're staring at your PowerBall ticket, and wondering if it's the one that will change your life. Maybe we'll all be able to have some more fun kicking your guts out when you take a spill.
Personally, I like to play high-stakes poker, and sometimes I carry more cash than I should (25 or 30 thousand). This is not something I advertise, but the main difference is that my mug hasn't been plastered all over every newspaper in the country, so I'm not a target (at least I wasn't, until I posted this). Mr. Whittaker has every right to carry as much cash as he wants. I believe I've already addressed this issue in another thread, so I won't bore you with it here.
There are many ingredients in the recipe that go into making up someone's personality. In this case, we can identify only one of them. We're all sitting in judgment on a man whom, to my knowledge, none of us has ever met. Would we be so happy-go-lucky, so flippant when we're accosted every day, at every turn, by people we don't know who are devising scheme after scheme just to get their hands in our pockets? I, for one, would not. I can only imagine that I would dventually be forced to accept the fact that I simply can't help everybody. I would, more than likely, want to hide someplace dark, but familiar, where I could escape those pressures and the constant, never-ending hounding of people who are presumptuous enough to believe I would even care who they are.
Jack Whittaker has managed to grab the brass ring; the same prize most of us here reach for twice a week. He should be our hero, not the butt of our jokes. I understand that none of us contributed to his present circumstances but, as a fellow lottery player, I believe he deserves our support. Think about it: If you were being assaulted, would you want the witnesses to help you or your assailant? This thread equates to each of us taking our turn in line with a baseball bat, against the man we most envy, as though we're trying to get candy from a pinata. So I ask, to what end? What do any of us have to gain should our dire predictions of his total ruin and death come to pass? Are we, as a group, so petty? If he's going to pull out of this tailspin, he's going to need encouragement; he has plenty of critics already.
Frankly, I'm a little disappointed; I thought I was in better company.
