Do you want a ticket in the lottery of life?

Just imagine this. A few minutes before you are born, someone comes to you and says, 'Now, just before you take this opportunity to live on earth, I want to explain what it involves, and then my dear friend, it's up to you. You get one ticket only. Weigh it up and decide whether you want to go for it.

So here is the deal.

You might be born poor, or you might be born rich.

You will live from no time at all to maybe 100 years.

You will die. You may not know death is coming, or you may be really aware of it.

Your body is capable of having very intense experiences. Some of these things are almost overpoweringly enjoyable. Things like falling in love with another person, or the joy you may feel when you see your children do well in life. These things are balanced by the pain caused by the opposites. You may get toothache so bad you can think of nothing else.

Some people also say that the human body can enjoy the ultimate experience by transcending the opposites of this world and experiencing the infinite.

You may be pretty or ugly. You may be gay or heterosexual. You may be a religeous fanatic. You may be a criminal or a murderer. You may be a really kind good hearted person. You may be a soldier. You may be boring. You may smell. You may be famous or you may be a total nobody. Your body is not guaranteed to be perfect - some bits of it might not work. Also, while you are alive it is possible your body may deteriorate or get damaged at any time. By mistake you may do something that ruins your life. By mistake someone else may do something that ruins your life. By mistake you may ruin someone else's life, or you may do it on purpose. By chance something might happen and your life may get ruined.

You may be born into a peaceful area or you may be born into an area of war. Sometimes in some areas of the world there is no rain for long periods of time and people die in their 1000s from hunger - you may be one of these. Or you may be one of the people who who has plenty of food and you just can't stop eating. You may end up being massive.

You may have to spend long periods of time doing totally irrelevant things for someone else, to make money for yourself to live on.

While you are on earth you may fall in love with other people. They might not necessarily love you. They might though, but they also might die before you do. Sometimes people you love and live with might run off with other people. If you have kids they might die. If you separate from your partner you might lose your kids too.

You may got bored with your partner. He/she may get bored with you. You may be locked in to a situation that means you have to accept this.

If you live long enough to get older you will become more irrelevant. Your options will dwindle. Bits of your body will hurt and stop working. You may have a family around you, but you may not. You may end up in a home for the elderly, or you may just have to rough it out as best you can.

You may be beautiful. You may be rich. You may marry the perfect partner. You may have beautiful children. You may have a beautiful house and a beautiful garden and beautiful cars. At Christmas your family may gather around you and your house might be full of love. Or you may be on your own and no-one even knows about you.

So do you get the picture? Have a think about it? Do you want a ticket?

'Ok yeah, I'll give it a go'