22.68 grams.
I keep two glass jars in my bedroom. One of those jars is rather large and holds thousands of pennies, and a smaller one holds a collection of nickels and dimes. I have been piling them in each time I return home with change in my pocket. The nickels and dimes come in handy, but I don’t usually carry them with me, so the jar is filling. The pennies are beginning to overfill because, well, who likes keeping pennies in their pocket? They have to exist in bulk to have any worth and no one wants to carry around all those pennies. They do serve a purpose, but most of the time I’d rather just pay with the silver coins and keep stock piling the pennies until I can trade them into a coin star machine.
From time to time I will pull out the dimes and nickels if I know I may find a vending machine, but only if I feel an opportunity to unload as many as possible. They have worth, but I just don’t like dealing with them in any setting unless it affords me an opportunity to combine their worth, en masse.
But those pennies; they just sit in that jar. Are they of value? Of course, they are. When presented in large quantity they still hold the same value as the other coins. It just seems they take up too much space to be worth all that effort of swinging around in my front pocket. Still, they are piling up in that jar.
If I were to take those pennies in groups of 100 they would hold the same financial value as a dollar bill. Every retailer, gas station, or convenience store would accept them as legal tender, even though they would prefer other denominations of coin. However, 100 pennies weighs around 250 grams. Doesn’t sound like much, but it will weigh your pockets down and tear holes in your jeans. As far as sheer quantity and number of coin it certainly exists in larger amounts and is easier to accumulate over time. Rarely does anyone look at a jar of pennies and suffer envy. Sure, there’s a lot of them, but they just don’t bring as much value to the table in reference to the amount of time and space they take up.
I haven’t mentioned quarters in my coin hoarding analogy. Quarters don’t get hoarded. I keep quarters in my car or in my pocket at all times. Quarters make sense to me. I only need 4 of them to achieve the value of 100 of its copper siblings. Never have I handed 4 quarters to a cashier and had them respond with a disappointed scowl and a request for 100 pennies instead. Conversely, never has an attendant given me back a quarter and I responded with a request for 25 pennies.
100 pennies, at 250 grams, is 227.32 grams heavier than 4 quarters. They will always hold their place in my daily transaction needs, but they will never be as valuable to me as a quarter. While I will always need pennies, I will never consider them of more importance than quarters. I can empty my pockets right now and you’ll know which I consider more valuable. I have considerably fewer of them, but they bring more worth.
If your life was a jar, what would it filled with? I have a handful of quarters and a ton of pennies, but the quarters are the ones I can count on when I need them. The pennies are nice to have around, but they really don’t have any vested interest in who I am, or what needs I may have. Nor do they have to. Everyone is not called to be a quarter to everyone they interact with. They don’t call me when I’ve gone quiet. They don’t ask how my day was. The pennies don’t really want to be part of my existence, they just want to mix around in the jar with the quarters from time to time. They want to be able to say “I was in his pocket when he was cool”. The quarters don’t care if I’m cool, they just took the time to get to know the parts of me the pennies couldn’t, or wouldn’t see.
22.68 grams is all you need.
My life is full of pennies. I welcome them, so long as their place in the jar is acceptable and comfortable to them. Could they graduate to quarters one day? That’s totally up to them. I’m not actively looking for quarters. You never find a quarter by looking for one. I have quarters whose value was determined early on, without me ever having to weigh their value on the scales of loyalty and kindness. Some people were quarters to me from the moment we met and I saw the beauty behind their smile, or the sorrow in their eyes. Maybe, in some cases, I’ve been their quarter more than they’ve been mine. One can hope. You may be my quarter and I just don’t know it yet. Then again, you may be someone else’s and you’re trying to jump into the wrong pocket. I don’t refuse anyone the opportunity to prove their worth in my circle, but I also don’t let them work that out inside the circle. Pennies have to start out in their separate jar. You should keep your pennies in a separate jar as well. It protects both you and them.
How many pennies are you carrying around in your pocket? Is it because you haven’t found any quarters yet? Better yet, have you made any transactions that would have allowed you to receive a quarter in return? We don’t just find quarters on the ground. We have to make an emotional transaction with someone to see how they return the difference. Some only have pennies to return because their emotional pockets are incapable of receiving anything right now. They might be in a place where they put all their trust in their pennies and any type of transaction is unwelcome right now. Then again, Maybe they recognized you were a penny and their jar was already overflowing. Your self-perceived worth does not equate to their perception of such. You may be a quarter in many pockets, but it doesn’t mean you have to be everyone’s. Nor should you be. That’s exhausting!
Maybe, like myself, you thought you had quarters until it was time to cash them in? Perhaps, like me, you have found that sometimes people charade as quarters for a time, and then you find out that they were really just a handful of pennies along for the ride. Perhaps you treated your quarters like pennies, and they saw through it. Now you are out looking for another pocket where you can live out your façade.
That quarter will always hold its worth, if it’s truly a quarter. It may fall out of your pocket and roll under the car seat, it may collect remnants of the pocket its rattling around in, but no matter how aesthetically altered it may become, it still holds its value. Those pennies though, no matter how much you shine them up, will always still be valued as just that, a penny. There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you’ve placed nothing but pennies in your pocket and have an emotional transaction coming up.
You want quarters in your pocket? Be a quarter in someone else’s pocket first, but not in a disingenuous manner, simply to gain access. None of us are innately deserving of loyalty, it only comes about when we show we are willing to reciprocate. Pennies in a jar are just part of life, and a welcome one at that. But quarters, well, they’re what makes life bearable, enjoyable, and capable of navigating for however many more transactions we have to come.
Keep Rockin \m/
Jeremy
