Article from LCResource Newsletter - April 2008
Celebrating your continued development.

Title: A Penny for Your Thoughts

by: Michael J. Boyle, C.L.C.

The title of this article would seem to place a meaningful value on a penny. It’s an old saying dating back many years. As near as I can determine it originated in a book published in 1546 by John Heywood an English author.

Apparently there was a time when a penny was perceived as having some value worth tying to a question that seeks to elicit, in a kindly fashion, what a person might be mulling over in their mind. The curiosity seemed to imply that the disclosure of the thought might be worthy of the payment of a penny.

A penny was worth something of importance at some time in the past. That could hardly be the case now. Nowadays the penny seems to be a topic of great derision whenever the subject of money comes up. Whatever value it may have had has long been lost to the inflation of our economy. Though I don’t hear the expression much these days, when it is said I can only wonder if some people would be suggesting, in the tone of a more cynical society, that the thought was of little value. Meaning instead something like, “I don’t really give a darn what you think” more in the spirit of the diminished penny?

Today, seemingly worthless, pennies can be found with great frequency lying on the ground most anywhere. Lessened in their economic value they are ignored in the extreme. It occurs to me that that we have also, in lock step, grown to care less what other people think about us, our actions or anything else. We want to command the last word. But lets deal with the penny first.

I, for reasons I am not sure, have always bent down and retrieved the many pennies that I encounter. For years I have saved my pocket change and periodically, usually every fourth or fifth month, take my rolled up change to the bank and exchange it for dollar bills. The part that is rolled up pennies becomes three or four dollar bills and they take on a bit more importance. Saving them allows, through exchange, to create a more acceptable and valued denomination.

Just as the penny and it’s once used expression have diminished in use and in value, I have a growing concern that people have a diminishing respect for each others thoughts. The phrase “mind your own business” seems rather prevalent these days in all too many instances.

And as I wonder about this, I can’t help but think that our egos and an all too sharpened sense of indignation becomes too quickly offended without a consideration for what the other person may be trying to convey to us. I worry that our tendency not to want to listen to another human’s thoughts is falling into step with our growing impatience over using the diminished penny.

But then, on the other hand, I hear people say with some frequency, “Let me put my two cents worth in” and for the cost of another figurative penny you get to have the last word?

END.

About the Author: Michael J. Boyle holds his certification as a Certified LIFE Coach. Michael is founder of Executive Coach Now, an executive and business coaching firm. If you wish to learn more about Michael's work, please visit his website at: www.executive-coach-now.org.

Copyright Notice: Michael J. Boyle.
This article is copyright of Michael J. Boyle  © 2008. All rights reserved.
You may use this article for your newsletter and/or news feeds only if the author's name and copyright information is attached in full. For all other enquiries, please contact us.

 

Back to March 2008 newsletter.