I wouldn’t believe it, but it was true. I was standing in front of a trash can at the airport with one handful of pennies, ready and willing to just throw them away. In the nick of time I realized what I was about to do and that this at least didn’t suit my serious education.
I have always learned that you can’t just carelessly throw away things other people might desperately need. So you can’t throw away money, the exchange value for almost everything people need in this world.
Why was I about to do that? Every time I open my purse to pay in a coffee shop or a store I have to grapple with all the small change. At first glimpse I see the colour of copper all over my purse. In this moment the first awkward feeling arises. I want to get rid of that change making my purse feel like a brick stone in my bag. Hence I try to pay the accurate amount on the check to at least dispose of some of the coins. That takes time, grabbing the pennies, counting them, meanwhile trying to hold together all my other stuff. After some trials the line behind me starts to rebel against me. They want to move on. In most of the cases that is the moment when I start to get hectic and abandon my plans. In the end there are not less but even more pennies in my purse.
Frankly speaking: this small money bothers me. And the more: It is almost worthless. What can you buy for a penny? No wonder that in almost every store and coffee shop you will find a cup or a basket the customers immediately throw their pennies in. This small money has no compassion for me as a customer. It just takes too much time and effort to pay with pennies today. So why should I feel compassion for these coins and not just toss them into the trash can? Possibly because we should have pity on the penny that was outrun by growth and inflation over the years. In a globalized economy running on big scale the penny is just too small to make a difference. But with the smaller ones we should always be compassionate.
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