Unbeknownst to the original you, a new copy of your mind (with all your current values and experiences) is put into a random new version of you in your 20’s (young and healthy) in a random location that is populated and similar to your existing location.
You have nothing other than the simple clothes on your back and a briefcase containing one million dollars, clean and completely tax-free. The briefcase also contains minimal documents to establish your identity so everything is legit.
So now that you are young and rich and unattached, what next?
Sure, you have to spend on some immediate necessities and maybe you splurge a little in celebration. If your random location is not to your liking, it is easy to change. In fact, now is probably the best possible time to choose your favorite place to live.
But how do you see this story playing out in the long term?
As I see it there’s three ways this could go.
You coast on the cash, investing it wisely in safe stock and bond funds and perhaps an annuity. You spend modestly and make it last so you need never work another day in your life.
You try to parlay the million dollars into more. Perhaps you feel a million is not enough to sustain the lifestyle you want, so you work to increase your net worth.
You use it up quickly (hookers and blow? something else?) and either end up penniless or near that.
And do you try to make contact with your original self? Would that person even believe you? I suppose you could use your memories to help convince [yourself], but why bother? What good can come of it?
Do you feel a need to share some of the windfall with your original? Perhaps make an anonymous gift to [yourself]?
I think it’s be a mix of two and three. I’d invest in my education and retirement, of course. Anything leftover would supplement, but not drastically change, my lifestyle. For example, I wouldn’t buy a huge house, but I might use some money to make it so I can rent a grad student apartment without a roommate. I wouldn’t start traveling in luxury, but I might use the money to get a single room at the youth hostel rather than slumming it in the dorm beds.
I don’t really understand my relationship with my previous self, but I’d probably share if possible.
So I would be 20 and in 2011 or 20 and in 1981 and knowing what I do now?
If I was 20 in 2011, I would apply at a college [probably starting in a community college to get back into the swing of being able to study] and get a degree, I am thinking as a doctor as the skills transport anywhere, or as an ESL type teacher so I could do the expat thing. The remnants of the million after getting my degree and setting myself up with the basics of life would make the low wage a lot more comfortable, I could invest in a retirement fund and not have to worry.
If it was back in 1981, I would still get the education, but go for computer programming or engineering or something like that, and ride the dot com boom to more money and retire and do something gentle with my cash after investing in something that would give me an annuity until I die like ESL and expat teaching and traveling.
Or perhaps I would get the annuity, and a comfortable boat, and live on the boat and travel around until i have to go into a retirement home =)
I would put the bulk of the money away and try to live frugally as I tried to make it as a screenwriter. I’d probably go to college in film and work in entertainment as a backup.
I’d really miss my wife and kids, though. It’d be hard to establish relationships with other women without it feeling like cheating.
I likely wouldn’t be able to stop myself from checking in on my older self from time to time, especially to see how my kids were doing.
First, I would definitely want to invest the money, both in myself (education etc) and in some fairly safe stocks or bonds.
Second, I’m not sure if I’d contact myself, but I would definitely want to find a way to connect with my kids. They’re in their 20’s now so it would be a little weird but I would want to find a way to make that work.
I would also be looking for a way to contribue to their university education. Directly might seem weird but some obscure scholarship setup could work.
Actually after more thought I think I would contact myself. I’m currently consulting on my own but can you imagine a project leadership team that actually THINKS the same way? We could take over the world.
Assuming that the rest of history plays out like it did, I’d do #2 for sure.
I’d go back to 1997 (when I was 25), and I’d use that million bucks to invest in some little-known (then) companies like Amazon and Broadcast.com and in some big ones like Microsoft. I’d even try and get in on the Netscape IPO (to quickly sell out not long afterward for $$$).
I’d then use the massive windfalls to invest in longer-term mutual funds and blue chips, and have my money professionally managed, and sit back and live like some kind of Sultan for the rest of my days.
#1 is impossible I’d say. $1m is not enough to live on even with investments, and with the economy the way it is, 5% isn’t even guaranteed anymore. The answer would be to get a job, put the money away and try to invest it to supplement my income. Spend some of it.
I’m sure I could live for quite long enough on a million! I’d move back from this random place to where I live now, and happily drink myself into an early grave.
I figure a million dollars, turned into pounds, could last me about 30 years, assuming what I wasn’t spending kept up with inflation.
I’m normally pretty pragmatic. But honestly, I don’t know if I could bear being without my wife and kids, even (or especially) knowing that Original Me was still with them. That might drive me to some really uncharacteristic things, like either blowing it all spectacularly on booze and drugs and cars and stuff, or maybe buying a yacht and sailing around the world.
Then again, maybe if a strapping 20-year old me, with $1m, came a-courtin’, my wife might kick Original Me’s fat, old, kind-of-broke ass to the curb.
Well, I’d send money to my existing friends and family, 'cause I know what they’re dealing with.
Then I’d go back to school. This time, I’d take art and languages. Finally get that figure-drawing practice in. Study illustration. Go to Italy and see the works of the Great Masters. Get bilingual in French. Continue with that Japanese course. Be a backpacker under the radar. And go to the freaking IJK, the which I am too old for now!
Take a low paying job in Antartica. The pay is low there yet I really want to go. I would be able to afford a year plus stint. Plus work a few other exotic weird jobs I cant afford to take due to attachment/low pay.
That’s interesting. Maybe I’d try to pursue a musical career, which would be easier in my 20’s, especially early 20’s.
It does occur to me that it would be really hard for me to find a romantic partner. I’d want someone who was roughly equivalent to me in maturity and intellect, which would probably mean someone in mid-30’s (where I am right now), but I wouldn’t want a mid-30’s guy who wanted to hit on a girl in her early 20’s. Ick.
Young me wouldn’t need schooling to do the job I do now, but it would take at least a little unpaid time to build up a reputation and client base again. Trouble is, I would want to do that, and also go to art school to improve my skills for my hobby too.
Oh what the heck. Art school first, then split my time between hobby and building up a reputation for freelance work. I’d probably live pretty frugally/sparsely, but use the money to free up my time as much as possible.
I’d also be inclined to get some money to my family-that’s-not-my-family somehow.
I just thought of something weird. The New Me[sup]TM[/sup] is a copy of me in a New Young Body. So all the old art ideas that have been kicking around in the Old Me’s brain will now be duplicated. Once the New Me gets rolling with creating things, the Old Me is going to notice some artwork in the world that seems oddly familiar… and since the New Me has all these bucks, that artwork will get a lot more notice.
I’d like to think that we are classy here at the SDMB, and have grown beyond short replies like “+1” or “me too!!!” but this post/movie reference is just perfect.
Knowing me, I’d spend 90% on wine, women and song. And I’d probably just squander the rest.
Not really. Actually, I’m in a situation pretty close to this at the moment. What I’ll probably do is invest the money, but keep some available for short-term use to cover living expenses. Get an apartment and then start looking for a job, with the luxury that I can turn down interviews and offers if they don’t really interest me. Or I might go back to school.
