Why being alive at all is the rarest lottery win
Most of us think of winning the lottery as a once-in-a-lifetime event. The odds of striking it rich with Powerball are 1 in 292 million. A long shot, to say the least. But you’ve already won the only lottery that really matters: the chance to be alive at all.
Of all the trillions upon trillions of atoms swirling in the cosmos, you were assembled into a living, breathing, conscious being who can notice, reflect, and appreciate. Out of billions of possible genetic combinations, you—this singular self with your particular thoughts, memories, and quirks—are here, with lungs that still inflate, eyes that still see, and a heart that still beats. If that isn’t winning against astronomical odds, what is?
It’s easy to forget this “default win.” Life’s treadmill of expectations rarely gives us a break to notice it. We get pulled into the minefield of school grades, career promotions, mortgages, likes, and reputation. One stumble—one exam, one lost client, one awkward silence—feels catastrophic. But beneath all those local dramas lies the deepest fact of your life: you are still here, still alive, still capable of caring, tasting, and savoring.
Life as a Once-in-Eternity Chance
Richard Dawkins put it starkly:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”
Think about that for a moment. The overwhelming majority of potential humans—trillions upon trillions—never even got a ticket to the game. You did.
Your one existence is not just rare—it’s once-in-eternity. Every time you watch clouds drift across the sky, or hear music shift from a minor note to a major, you are cashing in a ticket more valuable than gold.
And yet familiarity dulls us. We sip life without tasting it. We see but don’t notice, hear but don’t listen, live but don’t register the majesty of being alive. Philosophers sometimes call this the “anesthetic of familiarity”—a kind of sleepwalking through existence. What wakes us up again is the realization that simply to exist at all is the ultimate jackpot.
The “No-Lose” Perspective
When you really take this in, life begins to feel different. You start carrying a “no-lose” perspective with you. The logic is simple:
- If you succeed, wonderful.
- If you stumble, frustrating—but you’re still alive.
- If you fall behind, or plans collapse, or even if the world seems indifferent—you still got the greatest win the cosmos had to offer.
That perspective doesn’t erase hardship, but it does change its scale. A ruined day doesn’t feel like a ruined life. A disappointment doesn’t feel like a cosmic verdict. You hold a deeper ballast—gratitude for the one fact no failure can erase: the fact that you existed at all.
When Bonus Time Hits Home
I learned this viscerally as a teenager. At seventeen, desperate for adventure and careless about risk, I climbed an ice wall in sandals. The higher I went, the more I realized how badly I’d miscalculated. When the ice started to crumble beneath me, I thought for sure it was over.
By some absurd luck I managed to scramble back to safety. When I collapsed, the first thing I did was push my fingers into the dirt—just to feel the earth again. It was the most ordinary of sensations, but in that moment it was overwhelming. I shouldn’t have lived to feel it.
Decades later, my palms still sweat and tingle when I remember that climb. And decades later, I still sometimes remind myself: every day since then has been bonus time, stolen from death, a gift to me. That realization makes even a bad Tuesday feel strangely okay. Precious even.
Practicing the Default Win
Of course, we can’t live every moment in that heightened state. We fall back into routine, numbness, petty irritations. But we can train ourselves to return to the baseline:
- Pause once a day. Wherever you are, stop.
- Name three things you wouldn’t have if you weren’t alive. They don’t have to be grand. The texture of your coffee mug. A memory that still warms you. Your breath entering and leaving your chest.
- Whisper to yourself: I’ve already won.
It’s not denial of difficulty. It’s not pretending bills, breakups, or back pain don’t exist. It’s simply recalibrating perspective: whatever else is happening, you’re here, you got to live, and you’re still in possession of that ultimate gift.
Why This Matters
Some people worry this perspective will make us complacent. Won’t gratitude dull ambition? If we’re already winners, why bother striving? But it’s the opposite. Gratitude frees us from desperation and gives us courage to strive for what really matters.
If you believe your life is already a jackpot, you stop chasing hollow markers of worth. You begin asking better questions: What do I want to do with this rare chance? What kind of story do I want my life to tell? You take risks not because you’re empty and desperate, but because you’re full and grateful.
The baseline fact of your life—your once-in-eternity lottery win—grounds both ambition and a sense of calm. You strive, yes, but from a place of triumph rather than lack.
Coming Back to Bedrock
At the end of a hard day, when expectations have weighed you down and nothing went right, you can return to the simplest truth: you are still here. You still get to wake up one more morning, breathe one more breath, try one more time. That is the unerasable baseline, the victory no failure can cancel.
In that sense, every morning you wake up is another jackpot. Every evening you lay your head down is another gift you got to spend. No matter what happens in between, you’ve already won.
