Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 4:4, “I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
The lottery in the Netherlands must have seen some inspiration in this. It came up with a variation called the “Postcode Lottery.” ZIP codes specific to one street are picked randomly and everyone who lives on that street — and who bought a lottery ticket — splits the grand prize. Sales went way up, and for an interesting reason. It wasn’t so much because everyone expected to win, but because they would hate to have their neighbors win while they sat it out. If we can’t get ahead of them, at least we don’t want to end up BEHIND them.
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Adapted from “Selling a fantasy,” by Adam Piore, The Week magazine, September 6, 2013, page 44.