Someone once told me friends are like change for a dollar bill.

Consider your acquaintances who are only around when it is convenient for them. They put themselves first, and certainly can’t be counted on in tough times. Their value is fairly limited – they are pennies.

Your nickel friends are a little less selfish, still putting their own interests ahead of yours – but perhaps willing to temporarily subjugate their plans on your behalf.

Dimes even more friendly, attentive, and supportive.

Your quarter friends – they are the most valuable and fewest in number. They will stick with you through tyranny and tribulation – their support rarely waning.

By this logic, we’d be better off having four quarters over one-hundred pennies.

Here’s the problem with that metaphor – we are the Mint. We are the ones stamping out the coins.

And people aren’t inherently pennies or quarters – rather they are blank slabs of copper/zinc/nickel onto which we ascribe their value. Oftentimes changing daily.

Some days we call them pennies because their value to us is very limited. Maybe they can earn their way back into our better graces and we transform them into nickels or dimes, or maybe even quarters.

____ isn’t a penny because she isn’t around. She is a penny because we’ve projected our sense of loneliness and abandonment onto her. Similarly, ____ is a penny not resulting from his deceptiveness and putting his goals ahead of ours – but from our inner feelings of lack, inferiority, and fear. Nor is ____ a quarter because of her ardent attention and support – but rather due to her reflection of our own sense of joyful worth.

We mistakenly believe that other people can make us happy or make us sad. Nothing could be further from the truth. We make ourselves happy … we make ourselves sad … and it is completely a function of which press we’ve chosen for ourselves – penny or quarter. And we’ll know which coinage we’ve manufactured based on how we feel.

You will see your value through your brother’s eyes. (T-22.VI.8)

If we feel sad, lonely, deprived, maligned, or otherwise down – we can be certain we’re minting boatloads of pennies. Conversely, when we choose the Mint of gratitude, joy, peace, and oneness – then all we’ll see is quarters … everywhere we look.

As the official Mint for our lives, we have a choice we make in every interaction. Penny or quarter. Worth a little or worth a lot. How do we want to see our brother? That all depends on how we want to see ourself.

Join us in Monday’s class where we’ll explore this concept of the value we see in others directly resulting from our own sense of self-worth. I look forward to seeing you then.