It's five o'clock on a Saturday. That's five in the morning, not nine in the evening, for any of you Billy Joel fans. I've stumbled out of bed to have my oatmeal and see what's going on online, before I hit the road on another busy day. Life has been throwing me curves and it has been hard to find time to write.

I glance at the Google News page. There is news about a commuter train collision not far from where I live, a train I sometimes take. Elsewhere, there are tornados, wild fires, and political scandals. Where is the good news? Where is the hope?

Perhaps it is this question that is driving the top headline of the day, $600 million Powerball jackpot attacks a crowd. For two dollars, you can buy a brief dream of what you'd do if you won, before taxes, 2% of the net worth of one of the Koch brothers, and people are lining up everywhere. Perhaps this reflects how badly our country is broken that people are living on $2 dreams of climbing out of the wealth imbalance in our country.

People talk about what they would do if they won the jackpot. They dream, for a day or two. Hold fast your dreams, the poet says. Yet what good are these dreams that have virtually no chance of coming true? What good are these dreams that too easily turn to a nightmare?

My mind wanders to those junior high school reading assignments, The Pearl, Old Man and the Sea, and The Lottery. Perhaps winning a lottery isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

Perhaps a good starting point is to think of those two dollars as a co-pay on a self-analysis session. What would you do if you won half a billion dollars? What would you save, what would you spend, what would you give away? What this tell you about what your values are?

Yet dreams should not be idle idylls. They should motivate us and change us. What are you going to do on Monday morning when the numbers don't match yours? Will the dream have fled, leaving no impact? Or, will you have learned something from the dream and find ways to help those you would have helped with your winnings? Will you find ways to help those you would have helped with the activities of your daily life?