REACTION PAPER

The Pursuit of Happyness

The film was based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner, a smart
salesman struggling to make ends meet. He and his wife invested a large amount of their
money to a medical device in hope for a better future. But it turns out, they were mistaken as the
device was slightly better than an x-ray machine but costs at a higher price. Gardner has big
dreams for himself and his own family, but it doesn’t seem to come together for him. His wife left
him when things turned tough and was forced to raise their kid alone. Gardner has an
opportunity to turn his life around when he was accepted as one of the interns at Dean Witter
Reynolds, a stock brokerage firm in San Francisco, California. Gardner was able to endure the
gruelling internship that lasted for 6 months and passed with flying colors. Later, he founded his
own stock brokerage firm, Gardner Rich & Co. His life story became one of the most inspiring
stories to date.

“Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do it. Not even me. You gotta dream, you
gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they’re gonna tell you that you
can’t it. You want something, go get it. Period.” - Christopher Gardner

Struggles are required in order to survive in life, because in order to stand up, you gotta
know what falling down is like. Almost all of the scenes in the movie are told about struggling.
How we have to go through the road of failure in order to succeed. Gardner didn’t let his lack of
education stop him from providing a better future for his family and achieve his dream. He has
shed gallons of blood, sweat and tears to attain them. He has prove that those who have
everything given to them become lazy, selfish and insensitive to the real values of life. The very
striving and hard work we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we
are in today.

After watching the film, questions that I have asked myself years ago but wasn’t able to
get a clear answer resurfaced to my mind again. Questions like “why do we need to experience
hardship?”, “what does it mean to be truly happy?”, “will I ever find my own happiness?” or “are
the things that makes me happy now, will still make me happy 5-10 years later?”. Until now, I
still don’t know the right answers to these questions, but if there’s one thing I am certain of, it is
that I will never find them if I choose to give up on life now. There are no shortcuts in life, every
struggle we go through is developing the strength we need for tomorrow. The harder the
struggle, the more glorious the triumph.