by Carly Mayer, M.S.

Every single day, I enter the Hamilton ticket lottery. I would pretty much do anything to see it and anything these days means entering the ticket lottery (since I’m not actually willing to move out of my apartment to raise the money to buy tickets). Then, every single day at 4 p.m., I see those unfortunate words: “Lottery Results: Try Again.”

Repeatedly, I continued to get my hopes up. Moments before I received the ill-fated news, I would be overwhelmed with excitement that on that day I would finally win. Afterwards, I would experience feelings of anger and resentment, fueled by beliefs that I should have won. I know every word to every song and can cite the entire story line without even seeing the show; this is not fair and I should definitely win. Then, the original cast left. Don’t get me wrong, I was still dying to see the show and continued to enter the lottery daily. However, at this point I decided to get my thoughts and feelings in check since an ounce of excitement disappeared.

I decided that I still wanted to feel that excitement that I might win, but the anger and resentment would likely interfere and maybe even result in me discontinuing the lottery. Instead, feeling healthy frustration and disappointment would be preferable and would not likely keep me from still entering the lottery. To change my unhealthy negative emotions to healthy negative emotions, I needed to dispute the belief that I should have won and that it should be fair.  Is there any evidence that the world should treat me fairly and that I should win, just because I am a devout fan?  Probably not! Yes, I would prefer to win, but that does not need to happen just because I say so.  This was the hardest part.  While I knew that thousands of people entered the lottery daily, I still felt that I should win since I entered every day and am such a devout fan. After focusing on the preference, rather than the demand, every single day at 4 p.m., I can say that two months later, while I may continue to feel disappointment, the anger and resentment have subsided and I am still keeping the faith alive.  And if I do one day win the Hamilton lottery – you will probably hear me screaming all the way from New Jersey!

Carly Mayer