My only choice, at home, for “local” television is the Tulsa stations.  Therefore, the only time I see the Kansas Lottery commercials is when I’m lodging somewhere in Kansas.  The commercials are all pretty much all the same.  They show people gleefully laughing and having much fun, either waving the stacks of cash they won in the Lottery or pulling the handle of the slot machine and showing a big win.   For me, it’s a good thing I don’t see these commercials very often because every time I do, I’m first a little angered that my Kansas government is in the gaming business, but mostly sad that we live in a world where people have accepted, and even demanded this situation of state-owned gaming. 

If I were a state legislator (and I won’t be) and I said “Let’s impose an extra tax on the poorest citizens in our state.  We can use that money to shore up our state budget.”  The outcry would drown out the current discord over increased property taxes.  From where I sit, it looks like the Lottery and state-owned casinos are doing just that, imposing a “tax” on our poorest citizens. 

It’s bad enough that we’re taking money that could be better used to climb out of poverty, but we’re also exacting a toll on their mindset.  Many of the ads say something like “Make your dreams come true.”  So, the message is that dreams will only come true by winning the Lottery or making a big haul from the state-owned slots.  More troubling still is that the message filters through to the youth in our state; your dreams coming true are dependent on the astronomical odds of winning the state-sponsored Lottery. 

What we’ve learned in ten years of the Successful Entrepreneur Program at ICC and the last two years creating Fab Lab ICC is that there can only be one entity in control of making a person’s dreams come true, the dreamer.  Again and again we see it through the entrepreneurs and makers we study and get to know.  These people, whether in the videos we watch or the area entrepreneurs we meet have learned that dreams will come true as a result of the power of thought by the dreamer.  Somehow, we need to convey a new message to our youth.  Your dreams are not dependent on winning the Lottery or the slot machines.  Your dreams are dependent on what you think about and work toward and it all starts coming true after you put it in writing.  Also that dreams should relate in some way to helping others, making the world a better place.  This is the message we try to convey with our Entrepreneurship and Fab Lab activities; always an underlying theme regardless of age, circumstance or walk of life.  Think for a moment what life would be like if everyone was pursuing their dreams in ways that would help others. 

Jim Correll can be reached at (620) 252-5349 or by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of Fab Lab ICC or Independence Community College. Archive columns and podcasts at www.fablabicc.org.