Choosing Happiness

I don’t talk about it much, but Tuesday night is still my night to work at the homeless shelter. The District seems to have more than its share of people who got nowhere to go, but I never forget that that don’t make them useless. I can’t. All my neighbors in my apartment building in Southeast, I met there. And while Southeast DC is kind of a run down neighborhood, we got a roof over our head and the furnace works in the wintertime.

Anyhow, this week I decided to bring Monte with me. I figure when a guy hits his teens it’s time to start thinking about other people too. Of course he figured he had better things to do, but his grandma, Mother Washington, kind of insisted he join me. So he helped me serve the evening meal. I expected some comments about how many of the people there are black like us, or about the smell some of them bring along, but as is so often the case, the boy surprised me.

“So, is this what Grandma means when she says we’re put on this earth to serve?” Monte asked as he handed a tray to an old, toothless man. “I wouldn’t want nobody serving me this crap.”

“You might if it was all you had,” the old man said, not offended, just defeated. The next couple people in line said hello to me by name. I’m down there a lot. A lot of times I don’t know their names, but when they give me a nod and a smile as they pass, I always return it.

“Why you so happy all the time?” Monte asked, as if nobody could hear him but me. “In fact, why are they so happy?”

A guy in a short, gray beard and a Vietnam era Army field jacket stopped in front of us. “The question, young fellow, is how come you’re so unhappy. I heard what you said before and yeah, your grandmother’s right. We are put on this earth to serve. Life’s about making somebody else’s life better.”

As the veteran passed, Monte muttered under his breath, “I live in a damned slum. Ain’t nobody making my life better.”

Before I could say anything, the veteran turned back from the far end of the line. “What’s that supposed to mean? Like somebody ain’t doing their job? Son, you go through life thinking happiness is all about getting what you want, you’ll always feel like you got cheated.”

The line of homeless men and the woman in front of me burst into laughter. Monte had the good sense to blush a bit.

I wrote the incident off as a good learning experience and maybe a lesson in humility for my little pal, but on the walk home, Monte was down right pensive. He was walking with his hands deep in his pockets, like a guy who was dealing with some serious issues. I’ve learned that if I leave him alone long enough, eventually he’ll say what’s on his mind.

Six blocks later, out of nowhere, Monte asked, “I don’t think I’m selfish just because I feel like I need more money, better clothes and a nicer place for Grandma to live. Don’t everybody want more than they got?”

At the corner I stopped to look around my neighborhood, which ain’t the best in the city by any means. I chose to live here because I felt like I was needed here, maybe like I could do some good. But Monte didn’t need a speech. Besides, it was a serious, fair question and I’ve learned when you talk to a kid that age, if you sound like you’re not taking them seriously they won’t hear a word.

“Monte, it ain’t wrong to want more. I think it’s natural, maybe just human nature to want more and better stuff.”

He looked at me. “Then how can them homeless guys that got nothing act so happy?”

That one was a little harder. I’d have to steal my answer from somewhere else. “I’m not sure you’ll understand this, man, but some of those guys are happy just because they decided to be happy. I know they teach you the Gettysburg Address in school, but I don’t think they tell you my favorite Abraham Lincoln quote. One of the coolest things he ever said was, "A person is generally about as happy as he’s willing to be.”

Two blocks later we were standing in front of Monte’s home. The house Monte’s grandparents bought before his mother was born, before his grandfather worked himself to death, before his father ran off and his mother disappeared, before his grandmother accepted the mission she said God gave her, to raise Monte.

Monte stood in front of the porch steps for a minute and said, “I don’t think it’s all she hoped for, and she deserves better, but she loves this piece of crap house.”

I was thinking the same general thing about loving a grandson she didn’t plan on raising. “Maybe that’s why Mother Washington is always smiling,” I said. “It ain’t getting what you want, kid. It’s wanting what you got.”