The Pursuit of Happiness

      Have you ever thought what is happiness? However, what kind of happiness you are pursuing? Is the happiness big or small? I like this movie, The Pursuit of Happiness because it closes to the reality, comprising job, family, the relationship between couples, and life style as well as financial issue. With the society highly competitive, everyone wants to earn more money than he or she thought, not just making ends meet. After getting married, becoming parents, they are duty bound to care for their family. When it comes to financial issue in the family, it probably ruins everything. It quite tests the relationship between couples. You might hear these similar dialogues below in life.

Dialogue A

Chris: I’m going to try to get home by 6. I’m going to stop by a brokerage firm after work. I want to see about there.

Chris’ wife: What job?

Chris: stockbroker.

Chris’ wife: stockbroker? Uh! Not an astronaut.

Chris: Don’t talk to me like that.

Chris’ wife: You should probably do your sales calls. Do you remember that rent is due next week? What are you going to deal with it?

Dialogue B

Chris: You should have seen me out there today because somebody stole a scanner.

Chris’ wife: Whatever!

Chris: What the hell you got attitude about?

Chris’ wife: Everyday, you got some damn story.

Chris: Listen! We’re going to come out this. Everything is going to be fine.

Chris’s wife: You said that before, “it’ll be fine” when I got pregnant. Now our son is 5.

Chris: so, you don’t trust me now?

Chris’ wife: whatever! I don’t care. I am unhappy anymore. I want to leave.

Dialogue C

Chris: I can not get Christopher today.

Chris’ wife: Oh, no. you don’t. Chris. I need to work at 7.

Chris: I have got to go to Oakland.

Chris’ wife: So, I have to get Christopher home, feed him, bath him, get him in bed,

and be back to work by 7?

Chris: Yes.

      I stand in Chris’ wife’s shoes. I can understand why she was exhausted and was so sick of living the life like that, having double shifts and bill, rent, parking ticket kept coming over again and again. She took care of her son, which picked up him from child-care center, fed him, bathed him, got him in bed and then went back to work when Chris could not be home on time. A chain of these things happened non-stop was accumulated, she might explode like a bomb anytime. I put myself into Chris’ shoes. I could not blame him for why he was unable to take care of his family well. In the movie, I saw him how to make effort to do his part. He just walked in adversity.

       After Chris’s wife left for New York, which her sister’s boyfriend opened a restaurant there and he could offer her a job, Chris started to look after his son on his own. To get the intern job, being a stockbroker, from Brokerage firm and there was no salary, he waited in front of that outside building every day, which it had been a month, to meet the manager, Jay. Chris just wanted to say,” Hi.” Chris thought Jay might be impressed by him. One month later, he got an opportunity for interview. Prior to the day when he had an interview, his landlord was determined to get him out of the house the next morning. With paying rent delayed all the time, the landlord couldn’t stand it anymore. Chris was smart. He told the landlord,” I will paint the wall of your house and you just give me a week.” “I have to have some time to pack and move.” During the time he was painting the wall at home, he got caught by police officers. As a result, he didn’t pay the parking tickets. After staying at the police station for one night, he would have an interview in brokerage firm in the morning. When the movie paused here, I felt like I was familiar with this scene. I was quite simple person, so I didn’t understand why I had a such troublesome boyfriend. I never went to the police station. The first time I went to the police station was because I needed to take my ex-boyfriend home. How ridiculous! My life was like a roller-coaster similar to Chris’s wife’s experience. Was Chris different? In the morning, he had to hurry to go to that company and couldn’t dress-up. Can you imagine that a messy interviewer wearing dirty jeans and having paint on his face sat in front of you? Can you imagine how bad luck he was like that? Thanks to his financial problem, the bad luck continued to happen again and again. My ex-boyfriend was alike him. I used to ask him that if he was testing how strong my heart was. Not only bad financial issue but also other personal problems let our relations finally turn out to be sour.

        For this part of interview, Chris was lucky. He was hired as an intern, but whoever brought in the most money after six months became an official employee. Although he got the job, He had to do his sale calls for making ends meet. Therefore, time was very important to him. In order not to waste any time, he wasn’t hanging up the phone in between calls and he also was not drinking water for not wasting any time in the bathroom. Finished all things quickly and picked up his son by 5 p.m. Nothing changed until one day.

        He didn’t pay the tax, so the government withdrew his money from his bank account. That day, he was broke. Without any places he could stayed, he and his son stayed in the bathroom on the subway. That day, he shed his tears. His face showed how much he needed a help while he sat on the ground. Next day, he knew Glide Memorial Church could take in the homeless. He needed to be there and be a line by 5 p.m. by bus, but sometimes, there were no longer available rooms due to too many homeless waiting. All he could do was to took his son to the train station for one night. For this part, I want to speak my mind, when everyone knows he or she can rely on others, he or she always has a lot of excuses. However, if there is no one that can be relied anymore, he or she must can still do it well. I saw him pick his son on time in this scene. I am aware that once people get married, they need to help each other, but with finance weak, too much the dependent mentality can ruin the relationship soon. This is what I used to experience also.

       Before becoming an official employee, he and his son stay not only in Glide Memorial Church but also at the train station. He probably stayed in the hotel for just one night when he sold a bone scanner.  Finally, after two months, he had a chance to contact a retirement CEO and the CEO was willing to know more about the investment. It was not easy for him to get a chance unlike something happened every day. Nevertheless, he missed meeting him for some ridiculous reasons, which one of them was a supervisor wanted him to park his car. Chris wanted to shout and asked God why everything was against him. To apologize to the CEO in person, he went to the CEO’s home, which the CEO was just going out with his friends to watch football game. Therefore, Chris and his son went with them. Meanwhile, the CEO told him,” I like you, but it doesn’t mean I will let you manage my money. You are still new.” Chris still had an opportunity to know his friends. It is called” When God closes a door, he must open another window.” The first big deal was from the CEO’s friends, which Chris made a lot of effort to convince them successfully.

        It was a good day when he knew the happiness was coming soon. Finally, he knew he was hired as an official employee and his eyes was filled with tears. At that moment, all he wanted to hug was his son. He told his son, “Don’t ever let someone tell you that you cannot do something, not even me. You got dream. You have to protect it. People can’t do anything themselves. They want to tell you that you cannot do it. If you want something, then just go get it.”

          In our lives, they are full of adventures, some of which are good and some of which are bad. No matter what you believe destiny or not, we still need to accept it. You can fight it if we don’t like it. Sometimes we may be lost because we don’t know if we need to insist in doing something we are doing now. No one can give us correct answers, but ourselves. Whatever it is, there must be a voice from our heart to tell us how to do. As Chris say, “you get dream. You have to protect it. if you want it, then just go get it.” Never give up!