If I had a million dollars...

Okay, maybe a bit more than that. Here's an icebreaker game I like to play. Let's say that you the lottery, or come into an unexpected inheritance from the proverbial long lost aunt. Basically, you have enough money so you never HAVE to work at a paying job again. What do you do with your time?

I like this game because I end up learning a lot of unexpected things about people. (This is a GREAT game to play if you're on a roadtrip to a conference with a bunch of people you don't know very well.) It's fun to start with the self-indulgent stuff (if you play this with current/former human service workers, you HAVE to start with the self-indulgent stuff, or people will try to "out-noble" each other- myself included- and what fun is that?) For me, there'd be a fair amount of traveling and pampering involved. I'd go to a health spa where they MADE me relax and eat my fruits and veggies. And I'd have fun ordering stuff (not on sale) from my favorite clothing and gardening catalogues.

But after all the "fun" stuff- how would you fill your time? This is where it gets interesting. I have three things that I'd do. Two don't surprise people who know me the work that I do for United Way, which includes technical assistance around outcome evaluation (just a fancy way of saying "helping programs we fund measure their results better"), finding/analyzing different data and statistics, and reading a lot of research articles to determine "what works" in health and human services. And I REALLY REALLY enjoy this stuff. So I'd go back to school and take more statistics, computer-programming, and evaluation and research courses. I'd also volunteer for some of the smaller, less-resourced service providers to basically do "for free" a lot of what United Way is paying me to do now.

Here's the one time-filler that does sometimes surprise people- I'd spend a fair amount of time volunteering with little kids in the Rochester City School District, helping them learn how to read. Why? Well, research says that being able to read at grade level by the end of third grade is highly predictive of future academic success. And it's not a secret that kids in the RCSD, on average, perform a lot lower on standardized language arts and other tests than their suburban counterparts. (A reason I'm really glad that United Way increased funding to programs geared to help city kids achieve more academically. These kids are a large part of the county's potential future workforce- I strongly believe it will benefit the whole community to help these kids do better in school.)

Plus, I find little kids to be cute, delightful, and sponges for learning. I really value reading for reading's sake- it's a great lifelong hobby (and with our great public libraries, free!). And I've always enjoyed reading pretty much anything with my younger nieces. So I'd be able to "kill several birds with one stone"- spend time on an activity I find enjoyable in itself, and (fingers crossed) help some of these children have a better chance at doing well in school and life.

I've found all sorts of interesting things about people playing this game. Several state that they'd start their own business in a totally different field from their current employment. A lot of people would volunteer in fields that I would NEVER HAVE GUESSED they were interested in. One business executive would be a volunteer driver for senior programs- "I like to drive and talking to older people is interesting." One highly accomplished executive director would become an activist and organize neighborhood residents to lobby and protest around certain issues affecting them. And I've found that I'm not the only one who wants to help kids learn to read...

So... what would YOU do with your time if you never had to work again? Go wild... but keep it clean LOL