He dropped the quarter in the chaos, and found himself...

When I first read Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, I worked third shift, washing, drying and folding bed linens and towels for a local hotel. I read the bulk of the book in the overnight hours between folding sessions, talking to my mentor Dave about the slew of stimulant fueled horse shit rolling around between my ears four nights a week. I listened to classical music and Coast to Coast AM radio with George Noory, and watched all seven installments of the Joseph Campbell documentary about why people believe what they do.
So it was no surprise to me when I glued the quarter to the back of my pentacle and began to write about it, thick with excitement at the discovery. It was an ordinary quarter, no different in size and shape from the billions in circulation at the time. It was what the quarter represented to me that made all the difference in the world.
See, at the time I had been looking for simplicity, much in the same fashion that I am now, only back then I knew how much I didn't know, and I knew that I was getting closer, more dissociative, and more frightened with every conclusion I drew. Dave would eventually tell me to go easy on myself, and Millman would eventually assure me that zoning into and out of spirituality was okay, but at the time I didn't know that. I needed something solid, something I wouldn't have to question, something, even, one dimensional...like a quarter.
If you take a quarter and flip it, which side will land face up? If you flip it at random, it has a 50% chance of landing heads up, and a 50% chance of landing tails up. It also has a 100% chance of landing front side up.
Regardless of what could be, what might be, what probably should be, the only thing that matters in the present moment is whatever you perceive the present moment to offer. Reality is constituent of perception, and since nobody can see into anybody else's head, there are at present approximately 8 billion versions of it. The perspective that you bring to our shared reality is the only one that matters, and that is loosely within our control in many aspects.
What separates my perception of reality from many of my peers is that my peers have a tendency to carry with them things which might have been.
"Whoa! Good thing that tree fell the other way! It could have taken out my bedroom window!"
Yeah, but it didn't. 
If somebody cuts us off in traffic and we almost crash our car in the attempt to avoid catastrophe, we were never meant to experience said catastrophe.
**This is not to say that I believe in predetermination. Rather, I believe in agency, but once something happens, it is sealed in the past and cannot un-be. It is our interaction and belief in the present moment that dictates our future!**


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