A month ago I went into the movies with one of my closest friends – Ms. B. I am fond of calling her such for I like her a lot and that is my term of endearment to her. In a short span of time I have learned to love her as my big sister (which she truly is to everyone). A very trustworthy one. I have learned to share all my deepest and darkest secrets to that woman (I just hope she won’t loose her mind and squeal everything, LOL). Well even if she does I guess she won’t do that to me or to anyone who have entrusted their secrets to her.
Going back, it was late that night when we went in. I looked at the time and it’s almost the last full show. Still we went in. We tried to find the perfect place to sit and having the thought of enjoying ourselves with some laugh. Knowing the fact that Will Smith (the main character in the movie) is a well known and an award winning comedy actor. I was thinking that I would laugh my ass off as I watch the movie, but to my surprise, I wasn’t able to. This movie of him comes in a totally new genre. I wasn’t expecting that he would be performing such role. He was able to justify his character, brilliantly! Otherwise, I won’t be doing this blog. Mr. Smith gave the most touching performance of his career. You may want to read the synopsis/plot which I have gotten from wikipedia.
Synopsis: Will Smith stars in this moving tale entitled “the PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS”. Set in San Francisco in 1981, Inspired by the true story of Chris Gardner (Will Smith), a brilliant yet unsuccessful salesman of expensive bone-density scanners. He is a family man struggling to make ends meet. Chris invested most of his and his wife’s money into the scanners, which he eventually finds extremely difficult to sell (and difficult to keep from being stolen by hippies and bums). Despite Christopher’s valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, he is faltering; the rent is far past due, and his car is towed after Chris defaults on over a dozen parking tickets. His wife Linda (Thandie Newton) is unhappy and buckling under the constant strain of financial pressure, as her paychecks are the family’s primary source of income. The only thing keeping the couple together is their five-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith).
One day, Chris meets a well-off man who reveals himself to be a stock broker for the Dean Witter brokerage firm. Impressed, Gardner seeks an interview with Dean Witter as an intern. Although he has no college training (Chris entered the US Navy after high school), his high-level math skills allow him to solve a Rubik’s Cube puzzle in an impressively short amount of time, impressing Jay Twistle (Brian Howe), the person in charge of the intern hiring process, to the point that he arranges Chris an interview. Upon hearing that her husband is going “From salesman to intern – backwards”, Linda is no longer able to cope with her unhappiness. She walks out on Chris, taking Christopher with her.
Unwilling to be separated from his son, Chris picks Christopher up from his daycare in Chinatown before Linda can. Chris complains about a sign outside the daycare center misspelling “happiness” as “happyness”, hence the spelling of the film title. Linda is going to move to New York and wants to take Christopher with her. However, Chris insists that he wants to keep the boy, and Linda accepts. Just before his Dean Witter interview, however, Chris is hit with two setbacks: he is being evicted from his apartment in a week, and he is arrested for failure to pay his parking tickets. After being released the next morning, Chris runs from the courthouse to his interview at Dean Witter’s offices, unkempt and dressed in painter’s clothes. Nevertheless, he gets the internship, although he is chagrined to learn that it is unpaid.
Periodically able to sell one of the half-dozen remaining bone density scanners for quick money, Chris and young Christopher move into a low-rent motel, although Chris is still unable to pay his rent on time. Undaunted, Chris pursues his Dean Witter internship as a way out of financial struggle: at the end of the six-month internship program, only one intern out of the twenty in the program will be chosen to become a full-time paid employee, and Chris is determined to be that one. The Gardners are evicted from the motel, and are forced to spend the night in a BART station public restroom.
The next morning, Chris and Christopher attempt to find themselves a shelter, eventually happening upon the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The shelter operates on a first-come-first-serve basis, so every evening after work, Chris is forced to race across town to pick Christopher up, take the bus across town, and run to catch a place in line with the other homeless people. Christopher of course does not like the situation (and on one occasion they lose one of his few toys; the doll on the film poster) but he is understanding, and still loves his father.
Chris places added energy into going out of his way to attract potential Dean Witter clients (including joining a potential customer at a football game; Chris and Christopher have a break by being invited in the customer’s box). In the end, Gardner’s hard work pays off: he is awarded a full-time job with Dean Witter which causes him to choke up and hold back his tears. As he leaves the office after hearing the good news, he starts crying as he walks into a crowd of people. Chris runs to his son’s daycare center and embraces him. The film ends with Chris and his son telling jokes to one another as they start walking down a street. This is when the actual Chris Gardner makes a cameo appearance. The film then explains that Chris went on to become a highly successful stock broker, eventually starting his own firm.
It was one of the most inspirational success stories of all time that I have seen so far. I was truly inspired. I even bought a DVD copy for my own collection. The fact is I am also planning to integrate the values learned from the movie to one of my future classes. I am also thinking of showing it in one of our meetings since all of my students are business administration students, I am sure that they would be truly inspired as I was.
I was deeply touched and moved when a series of misfortunes happened to the life of Chris Gardner. It was a picture of the real AMERICA. After the scene where Chris had to create illusions for his son imagining that they are in the pre-historic era during that time, they had to run away from the dinosaurs running after them only to get inside and sleep behind the bathroom door in a subway station, I was not surprise to find out that me and my friend – Ms B were wiping away the tears brought about by that particular scene. It was really touching thinking that Chris that time might be suffering from mental delusion because of the hunger and the series of adversities which both he and his son had experienced. I can say that it is the best part of the movie (except for a happy ending of course). We Filipinos viewed the United States of America as “The Land of Milk and Honey”. Many build their hopes and dreams that someday they would find the opportunity to reach “The Promise Land”. For there, their dreams shall be fulfilled, they thought (or we thought). In the movie, it is very evident that they are likewise experiencing the same as we are. And I have already felt the feeling Chris had when he was experiencing the mishaps for I myself have also experienced the same relevant situation. The feeling of being ALONE where there is no one to turn to. Feeling all the weight of the world on my shoulders. Feeling unhappy. And I guess everybody else does too.
What is the real happiness? We can never say we’re happy unless we truly are. Others call it “showbiz” when one utters that he is happy yet you can see from his face that he is not. We must understand first what happiness is, I presume. True that human as we are, we are created equal yet having our own individualities. In that sense, we can say that humans are having different states and levels of happiness.
Happiness is an emotional or affective state that is characterized by feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. As a state and a subject, it has been pursued and commented on extensively throughout world history.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 B.C.E., Aristotle stated that happiness is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake. He observed that men sought riches not for the sake of being rich, but to be happy (although the term we translate as ‘happiness’ in Aristotle cannot be adequately defined as either an emotion or a state). Those who sought fame desired it not to be famous, but because they believed fame would bring them happiness. Many ethicists make arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.
States associated with happiness include well-being, delight, health, safety, contentment, and love. Contrasting states include suffering, depression, grief, anxiety, and pain. Happiness is often associated with the presence of favorable circumstances such as a supportive family life, a loving marriage, and economic stability. Unfavorable circumstances, such as abusive relationships, accidents, loss of employment, and conflicts, diminish the amount of happiness a person experiences. However, according to several ancient and modern thinkers, happiness is influenced by the attitude and perspective taken on such circumstances.
Many English language terms refer to various forms of happiness and pleasure. These terms vary in the intensity of the pleasure they describe, as well as the depth and longevity of the satisfaction. These include: bliss, joy, joyous, carefree, jubilant, exultant, cheerful, playful, amused, fun, glad, gay, gleeful, jolly, jovial, delighted, euphoric, ecstatic, thrilled, elated, enraptured, comfortable, harmonious, and triumphant. Gratification is a deep satisfaction gained from becoming totally absorbed in a complex activity or by working toward meaningful goals. Happiness can also be achieved in various other scenarios.
Nevertheless, more people are still inquisitive knowing all that. People can’t help but wonder. Where is really the right path that leads to happiness? Thousands even millions of studies and literatures have been noted and publicized regarding happiness. Philosophers speak of such and even had their own listings of the way to happiness. Writers and social scientists have published books, guidebooks and CDs on how to achieve the real happiness. University Professors also have conducted classes on how to achieve entire happiness. If you are going to look at it and examine everything that they are saying be it from their books, CDs, lectures and the internet, it all boils down to one thing. We can achieve happiness IF and ONLY IF we try to live a life full of LOVE, SATISFACTION/CONTENTMENT and make GOD as the center of our very existence. Otherwise, we can never be truly HAPPY.
