Q: Hello, Major Boyd. Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us what brought you to law enforcement?

 A: My name is Major Danita Boyd. I’ve been a Baltimore City police officer for 29 years and major of the Northwestern District since July 10, 2022. My grandfather was a Baltimore City police officer for over 20 years, and my mother was a federal police officer. As a young woman, I wanted to make a difference in the world and hold people accountable for their actions through the law, so I decided to become a lawyer. While in school for public policy, I changed course and decided to join the Police Academy. I was 20 years old at the time. Training in the Academy is very stringent, requiring a lot of upper body strength, so I had a lot of work to do to build the needed upper body strength, which I did. I am very competitive, which helped. I became the best woman shooter in the class, became a squad leader, and was the one woman among four men and the class commander, who was also a man.

Baltimore’s aging public schools are frequently in need of major renovation or rebuilding. When this occurs, the student body and faculty are usually moved to a separate facility for the duration of the construction work. The temporary facility is known as a “swing school.” In our community, the swing school is Northwestern High. Northwestern has been used as a swing school since it was closed as a public high school in 2017. Forest Park High School used Northwestern as a swing school in that year. Northwestern is currently being used as a swing school for Cross Country Elementary/Middle School, which is being rebuilt as a 21^st Century School.

Are you mentally healthy? Of course you are! You’re (most likely) not institutionalized, are coping pretty well with everyday life (with occasional regrettable lapses), and aren’t struggling daily with some sort of severe psychological disability. This is considered doing really well, and most of us would describe ourselves as pretty happy and mentally healthy.But isn’t it sad, truly sad, that this passes for mental health? What a low bar we’ve set for ourselves! If we can function normally, we’re mentally healthy, right? Is this the tzelem Elokim we’ve been promised that we are in our essence?

Over two years ago, I began a quest for happiness. I read, thought, wrote, spoke, and dreamt about happiness. With the support of the Baltimore Happiness Club, which I founded and coordinate, I worked through just about every major idea out there about how to be happy.

Happiness is a cool topic these days, and lots of people have ideas about how to achieve it, from the mystical (Eckhart Tolle) to the psychological (Martin Seligman) to the religious (Rabbi Zelig Pliskin), and just about every stop in between.

Along the way, I’ve used myself as a living laboratory, trying out techniques and doing whatever the various authors recommended to become happier (positive thinking, exercise, meditation, breathing, humor, diet, nature, self-awareness, mantra, complimenting others, you name it). As I discovered new approaches, I tried them out on myself and the long-suffering Happiness Club (is there an irony there?).