I have spent my fair share of time in airports and on airplanes. 

Did you know that the TSA security checkpoints accrued $900,000.00 in loose change in 2019? And were you aware that around 58 million dollars of loose change is found on airplanes annually? 

How can these figures be so high? In the U.S. alone there are 2,900,000 air travelers every day who take 16 million flights per year. Change falling or forgotten from that many travelers adds up. 

What’s the point and does anyone really care? Have you ever been short-changed by someone who didn’t seem to know how to make change during a purchase transaction? We don’t like it. But we can walk off from TSA and not be bothered about the change we left behind. Why is that? 

To the former, there is a person connected who in our minds just might be ripping us off. We see their motivations as wrong. We’re suspicious. To the latter, we’re in control; we’re making a decision to not be concerned about the loss. We see our intentions as right. When people are involved outside ourselves we tend to react or respond differently. How we view their actions toward us is significantly different than how we view our own actions. Simply stated, we’ll tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. 

Perhaps we could work on changing that perspective and give others the benefit of the doubt. God’s word reminds us to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves…looking to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3,4)

You will find that people respond better to positive expectations rather than negative suspicians.