Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Procrastination Against Picking up Pennies

Have you ever noticed a penny lying on the floor and not bothered to pick it up? Even though the old adage says “Find a penny, Pick it up, All day long you’ll have good luck.” And yet you inherently know that a penny isn’t worth that much, so you pass it by without a second thought. In fact, if someone ever said to you “A penny for your thoughts,” you would probably insist on getting at least a dollar before you responded. (Am I right?)

Even when a penny falls out of your pocket, you never bother to pick it up. You just leave it wherever it lands. Over by the bookcase, next to the bathtub, caught between the floorboards. You see them all the time, lying in their place, waiting to be picked up. You mean to pick them up. You tell yourself to pick them up. But you don’t. They’re just not worth enough to you. So you leave them lying there. Alone, abandoned, gathering dust. Is this just a case of laziness on your part, or do you perhaps have a serious issue with anti-penny-ism?

All kidding aside, what if this act of defiance against copper currency actually represented a much bigger problem? What if ignoring the penny is really our way of procrastinating against something we don’t want to deal with? As if it’s showing us that we aren’t attentive to the little things. I mean, if we can’t even bend down to pick up a penny off the floor, what does that say about the other little “issues” in our life that we’re ignoring?

So the pennies start to pile up. They become a sort of physical manifestation of our chaotic state of mind. The more pennies we see, the more we probably need to resolve some kind of conflict in our life. And until we confront the problem, there will always be pennies lying around to remind us. That’s why it’s so hard to pick them up. It means facing our demons.

Anyway, it’s just a theory. It probably doesn’t work with dimes or quarters, though. And definitely not with Susan B. Anthony dollars.

9 comments:

Book Calendar said...

I always pick up my dropped pennies if it is safe. I like keeping my luck. Picking up a penny is supposed to be lucky. Believing you are lucky gives you are a more positive attitude which shows.

I throw all my change in a big jar which I keep on my desk. Most Americans average about $30 per month in change, $360 per year in loose change. $30 buys you fifteen rides on the New York subway.

Henson Ray said...

Thanks for the statistics...always good to know how things add up...

J. I. said...

i'm wondering... i live out in queens, and everytime i have the chance to get into the city, i do see more and more pennies here and there. i wonder if it's because there's simply more people per square feet, or is it because when one is in the city, one is usually in a rush off to somewhere...

Matthew S. Urdan said...

Pennies are mystical coins. Because of their copper content, often they have weird influences on tiny magnetic fields and even the human aura. It's true! Your state of mind affects your aura, which science has actually proven to be not some colored glow like what Shirley McLain talks about, but variations in the strength and regularity of your own electro-magnetic field. Pennies, or the copper in them, along with the other minerals in the environment, interact with your magnetic field.

If you think I'm full of bunk on this, just consider that Iron is the main ingredient in Hemoglobin. We all know iron filings react to magnetic fields. We all played with iron filings and magnets in elementary school science classes.

Hemoglobin is the major protein in red blood cells that allows us to get oxygen into our blood so that our cells can use the oxygen.

So on a very tiny scale, we have iron, in our blood, circulating through our body constantly, just like the iron in the molten outer core of the Earth that rotates around the earth's center that produces a magnetic field, the iron circulating in our bloodstream, produces a magnetic field in us--albeit a very weak one.

In any case, as copper is a conductor of electricity, pennies, and other copper rich coins interact with our personal magnetic field. Sometimes we pick up pennies. Sometimes we don't. Is it really a conscious decision or a manifestation of latent issues that we haven't dealt with? Or is it really that our personal magnetic fields are in balance or out of balance, thus we are not drawn to copper pennies, or maybe we are depending on our own electrical state of balance?

I dunno....but nobody has yet to figure out how our brains really work. Maybe that 90% of the brain that we're not consciously aware of monitors the state of our personal electro-magnetic fields? And maybe it affects such basic decisions as to whether we should pick up a copper coin we find lying on the ground. Or maybe the act of deciding to pick up that penny affects our brain and either creates a state of equilibrium or throws it out of balance.

Hmmmm. It's something to think about. But all I know right now is that my head hurts. I think my electrolytes are out of whack and I need to consume some gatorade.

Nice thought provoking topic, my friend!

Matthew S. Urdan said...

sorry about that...something with blogger...somehow my comment got posted like 6 times! RuhRoh Rhaggy!

Henson Ray said...

No problem. I thought you were just trying to get your point across, by emphasizing it 9 times. (Heh, heh) Actually, I found your opus..er, commentary quite interesting. You certainly do put a lot of thought into your posts and responses. Much appreciated.

Henson Ray said...

julya lim,
The poor penny...so undervalued...I used to live in Astoria, Queens when I first moved to the city many centuries ago...near Steinbeck street...gotta admit, I much prefer to Brooklyn to Queens...although there are some very nice areas of Queens as well..

.45 said...

I loathe pennies. I'll actually sweep them in a dustpan and throw them out before handling them. For one thing, I hate the way they smell. To me it's the olfactory equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Also, you have to make a very conscious effort to unload them, and it's embarrassing to be counting out pennies during a purchase, or lugging a sack of them to Coinstar.

Chessmaster said...

I will always pick up a penny when I see it in the streets. I think that most people wont pick it up because of the people around them. There are much more chances someone will pick up the penny if he is alone where no one can see him. In the bus where everyone is looking at each other, it's really rare to see someone bent himself to pick up the precious.