FINDING COPPER PENNIES

There was a small boy who when walking down the street one day found a bright copper penny. He was so excited that he found money and it didn’t cost him anything. This experience led him to spend the rest of his days walking with his head down, eyes wide open, looking for wealth.

During his lifetime he found 1,296,000,000 pennies, 480 nickels, 1900 dimes, 16.000 quarters, 200 half dollars and thousands of crinkled dollar bills. He accumulated quite a bank account in his lifetime. He prided himself in the fact that he spent his life getting his fortune from nothing.

Yes, the boy now old man, spent his life collecting money for nothing. Except that in his lifetime he missed the breathless beauty of 31,369 sunsets, the colorful splendor of 157 rainbows, the fiery beauty of hundreds of maples nipped by autumn’s frost. He never saw the thousands of white clouds drifting across blue skies, shifting into various wondrous formations. Birds flying, sun shining, and the smiles of a hundreds of thousands people that passed through his life. All of this is not a part of his memory. Nor did this man-boy have any time to build a successful family or circle of true friends. No one cried for him when he passed on, in fact, many were glad to see him leave this world.

Who do you know that is living like this? Head is bent down burdened with the task of achieving wealth. Someone who has never had the time to develop friends, family or true wisdom. Someone who is totally consumed with greed and never understands “the best things in life are free”. People that have spent their whole life searching for those copper pennies above all things.


People are like stained-glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within || Elizabeth Kübler-Ross