What would you do if you hit the lottery?  How can you do some of that right now?

A poignant couple of questions put by Phillip Su.  Another way of putting this is what is your dream job and how can you begin to work towards that?  Although job may the wrong term here since it implies work.  And from what I’ve noticed, dream jobs rarely feel like work.

This is a really tough question.  For me, I have no idea what I would do if I won the lottery — at least, not exactly.  One thing I know I would be doing is what I really love to do: solve interesting problems.  And I get to do that now in grad school.  In fact, this was my major motivation behind going to grad school, giving myself more opportunities to solve interesting problems.  But are these the types of problems I’ll be wanting to solve forever?  Probably not.  Is this the industry I want to be in forever?  Maybe not.  But one thing I know for sure is that if I hit the lottery I would still be doing something pretty close to what I’m doing right now and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

P.S.  I bought a regular lottery ticket with my friend, and also a hospital lottery ticket with my sister recently, so let’s hope I get the chance to experience this question.  It’s always fun to dream as long as you come back to reality every once in a while.