The following article appeared in The Boston Herald on August 22, 2005. It appears here by permission of the writer, Lilla Cosgrove.

As privileged Americans living in the land of plenty, where bigger is almost always better, we tend to live under the false pretense that wealth is the only way to succeed in life. However, could the true key to happiness in life be having nothing?

On the week of July 8th to the 15th, a work team from the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts traveled to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to work at the orphanage and school called “El Hogar de Amor y Esperanza.” The boys living at El Hogar range from six to twelve years of age and while at school, learn all basic skills until they are thirteen and then can decide whether to go into the technical school or the agricultural school to further their education.

These boys are taken from very poor situations, homes with little familial support and no amenities, to us, a very bleak existence. Most of the boys’ families make about 500 lempiras (20 dollars) a month and use about 350 lempiras (14 dollars) for rent of a home. The boys have nothing to their names, but are the happiest children any of us on the work team had ever seen. Not clouded by the miniscule details and problems that consume our American lives, these boys genuinely appreciate everything granted to them, their food, their clothes, and the presence of those who love and care for them. It is impossible to communicate the clarity and purity that life possesses in El Hogar, and the appreciation of the small things like clean water and new clothes that is born from spending time at the school and with the boys. The line between wants and needs is cleanly drawn, and one learns to find the good in every situation.

We, as Americans, live with a constant desire to achieve something better, never satisfied with what we have. Because we can never find that “something better” we can never be content with the life we live. Material things overtake the moral aspects of our lives. So once again, I pose the question, could the key to happiness be freeing yourself from the constant yearning for material possessions? Our group went to El Hogar to show the boys that someone cared for them, however, they seem to have taught us more about our lives, however different, than we could have possible imagined. We seem to have found an answer to our question.