Thursday, April 05, 2007

The Pursuit of Happyness

No, that's NOT a typo, and why the unusual spelling? You need to go and see the movie yourself. :)

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It's about Chris Gardner, how he took care of his boy living on next on nothing (They even slept in toilets inside the subway at times.) and in the end become a successful stockbroker and later on an entrepreneur.

The two most memorable lines (for me) from the movie (not verbatim, I can't remember them exactly =P)
1. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it, not even me, you have a dream, go on and pursue it.
2. Thomas Jefferson wrote about protecting the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence, and I don't know how he knew to use the word "pursuit" because this is really a pursuit of happiness, one could never get it.

I have been poor, but never that dirt poor. I have worried about money when I was younger, but never like that, so I really admire Chris Gardner. To achieve such success under those circumstances.

I read this from a news report on Chris Gardner from Fortune. "But I do believe, with all my heart, that some of the things that I had to go through were God's way of getting me ready for what He wants me to do."

I think the most successful people are the ones who need to go through difficult times.

As for the pursuit of happiness, I think we can never be totally happy, I'm sure even after Chris Gardner got rich, he is still unhappy at times. Joy is a totally different thing. I think we need lots of things to be constantly happy. To be joyful, we only need God.

Check out his real story, just slightly different from the movie version,
from his biography here
from CNN here
from Fortune here

P.S. To those who went to see the movie with me (except one), Chris Gardner's son is really younger than us, he was 20 month old NOT 5 years old when he slept on the streets with him... =P He was 25 last year... And the year this story took place was 1982... =P

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i agree that this movie is very inspiring. The scene of Will Smith studying under the dim light in the foster home was most remarkable.

aMy said...

yep. It's an amazing movie. The most memorable scene for me is the scene where Will Smith slept in the toilet with his son... Really a remarkable guy! Chris Gardner I mean, tho I like Will Smith too. =)