Terry is a homeless man who sits outside my office building.  He’s mild-mannered, mostly keeping to himself.  In fact, he’s so unobtrusive (which he prefers), that you might miss him if you didn’t look for him sitting quietly amongst the newspaper vending machines.  He doesn’t ask for money.  He doesn’t yell profanities into the air.  He doesn’t wear his bitterness on his dirty sleeve.  He sits outside, like most of the homeless men, probably because my building is located next to a cathedral that has a mid-day mass.  Yes, he has an empty cup, just like everyone else.  But you won’t see him clamor up the steps, accosting you as you leave.  The thing is that he can’t because he’s in a wheelchair.

At times, I can grow callous to the pleas of the homeless, silently convincing myself that they will just spend it on alcohol (which I can sometimes smell), or on something far worse.  It’s impossible to know the extent of his disability, and the cynical side of me questions it when I see others like him use wheelchairs solely for pity and for gain.  He tells me that he needs the money for his medication.  Also to eat.  And while I believe him, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if that’s his “story” to get more money from me.   I wonder if he really needs that wheelchair.

Then I realize that it’s really not my business what he uses it for.  It’s not for me to judge.  In a strange way, it’s more important that I simply give.  We rationalize ignoring the homeless by saying to ourselves that giving the $0.78 in our pockets to a homeless man would be used to buy liquor or drugs.  Seventy-eight cents.  Yes.  You could be right (although last time I checked (which was never), a vial of crack cost more than $0.78).  Maybe.  But maybe (just maybe), if you thought about it more, you’d realize that perhaps, it was more that you simply didn’t want to give your money away.  And if you did give your money away, you'd want to see some good come out of it.  And just the thought of it being used to buy some Mad Dog outweighs that potential good.  I mean, I need that money to buy yet another CD.  My collection is almost at 500 CDs.  It’s shameful.

Every morning, I am presented with an opportunity to be charitable.  That is rare in this culture of me-firsts, where teenagers buy Prada bags and Diesel jeans, and the 20-somethings can’t feel like they’ve arrived without a 5-series BMW (3-series BMWs are so commonplace).  This town reeks of selfishness.  Lunches (even between friends) are networking meetings.  It’s hard to feel human here…or perhaps that’s the problem – that we feel too human here. 

Every morning, I am presented with an opportunity to give to someone who is less fortunate than me.  Amidst all of my obsessive introspection and ramblings on this blog, I am reminded of how much I do have.  It’s cliché to say, I know (especially during the holiday season), but chances are if you’re reading this on your computer at home (or perhaps even a laptop), you’ve got more than most.  You’ve got more than Terry.

I want to write volumes about Terry’s life, because what intrigues me is his story.  People who graduate from Exeter and Andover, go to Harvard or Yale on a family inheritance, and then spend the rest of their lives in the Hamptons are not exciting to me.  They’re one-dimensional, blue-blooded cardboard cutouts of a perfect life.  No, the story is found in the struggles that one faces and how that person deals with them.  Everyone fights to be something else.  Everyone fights to be someone else.  Some fight harder.  Some give up.  But we all want to change.  That’s what we root for in the movies.  Think of the movies you’ve seen and loved.  A Beautiful Mind.  Hoosiers.  Rudy.  Forrest Gump.  Garden State.  I could go on and on.  We watch these movies over and over, because we see (and identify with) their struggles and want to see them succeed.  We want to succeed.