See a penny, pick it up. The rest of the day you’ll have good luck.

I always pick up money. Just yesterday, I stopped traffic struggling with my short fingernails to grab the shiny penny off the pavement. I found two quarters on the sidewalk the other day as I left the grocery store. Finding money makes me feel lucky, especially on the sidewalk, in the street, or stuck in the bushes. When I come across the random dollar in the pocket of a jacket not recently worn or my ‘fancy’ purse that doesn’t see a lot of action, I am pleasantly surprised, but it doesn’t produce the same flush of positivity as that grimy nickel in the gutter.

The Year of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell is a fun and timely read. The author speaks directly to all the tricks our brains employ in increasingly anxious times to soothe ourselves. Some of her observations hit home for me, like describing the romantic relationship that began with an onslaught of red flags only to be ignored. Confirmation bias and the recency illusion are both concepts I am familiar with and enjoyed hearing her take on it. Thinking I am going to have a better day because I noticed loose change on the sidewalk and took the time to retrieve it, could be irrational. And just maybe, it isn’t.

Finding a penny is not unlike starting your day off with a bit of good news, a pleasant surprise. The rest of your day can be buoyed by a single, positive nudge. Maybe it’s mid-day, you are feeling a bit worn and standing in a line when a person asks if you would like to go ahead of them. When that happens to me, I find myself a little friendlier to the cashier, more patient with the person who has their backup lights on in the car and decided to answer a text message, or taking a moment to watch the hummingbird on a bottlebrush tree.

I realize that Amanda Montell would most likely and very nicely suggest  that I am confusing the syndromes in her book with another pop culture construct, random acts of kindness. Yes, and not quite. I believe the energy we bring to the day informs the day we will have. Some days, we are on our game. We remember to breathe deeply, acknowledge this gift of being alive and recognize that we have a whole new day before us. We choose to have a good day. 

Some days, I wake up a bit late, tired, distracted. The day starts off wobbly and then I find a penny. A glimmer of possibility breaks through my fuzzy thoughts, and I am on my way towards a better day. Who am I to turn down a little help from the Universe?