The littles things: Quarters

This afternoon, my mother and I went grocery shopping. One produce store and the other Aldi. For those of you who don't know (assuming people read this), Aldi is an super discount "supermarket." At Aldi's, you need to put a quarter into the shopping cart to use it. When you are done shopping, you get that quarter back.

After we finished up at Aldi's, we were loading up the car and this woman came by and asked my mother for the quarter from our cart. My mother did not say anything and just looked at her. I said, just let her have it. The woman said thank you, God bless, happy new years, etc.

Then me and my mom spent 5 minutes talking about that quarter. She was not pleased that I gave up the quarter.

T: Are you really gonna miss that quarter? MY quarter?

M: How do you think you make dollars? By quarters! Yes, I will miss it when I am a quarter short of a dollar.

T: Mom. Really? We have a bunch of quarters at home.

M: Money is money. During these times, every little bit counts.

Normally, I would not give that quarter a second thought. Though I'm not the most fortunate, I know how fortunate I am. Even during this freezing time of the year as my family rations gas and depend on thermal blankets and space heaters, I know that there are many people out there that don't even have that option.

But my mother had a different mentality: the survival mentality. I know a lot of it comes from how she was brought up during the Cultural Revolution in China where every little bit does count. Times were hard. And times are hard for us now since she is now unemployed.

I just strongly believe in karma. I believe that the little things that you put out in the universe will come back to you. That quarter that I gave away will come back to me in a different form. That quarter may not change that woman's life. But that quarter may be what she needed to make that dollar she needed. Or maybe not. Maybe she'll still end up losing it, spending it elsewhere, etc. And I will be okay with that. How that energy is used is not up to me. I fully believe that the things I can control, like giving off positive energy, will eventually come back to me no matter how that energy is initially used. This is my faith, my religion, my belief in humanity. I have to trust that the universe will do its part as long as I do mine.

And maybe my initial thought was that that quarter was insignificant. But after my mother's reaction to something that comes natural to me, I saw that that quarter was just as significant to me as it was to my mother.