Sunday, March 11, 2007

The Pursuit of "The Pursuit of Happiness"


Yes the movie was released last year but due to lack of information as well as lack of willingness to sacrifice about 20.000 rupiahs made me watched this movie few days ago. My friend told me about this movie earlier but I thought I already watched the movie. But it turned out that I was wrong.
This movie, in my point of view, is great. It was very inspiring, it told me to hang in there, it gave me hopes about the promising future of hardworks. The story was about a man who had not enough money to rent a shelter for him and his son, absolutely homeless, he and his son had to move from one place to another. They often stayed at flophouse. They even slept in locked bathroom at subway station. However this man never gave up. He joined stockbroker internship, which gave him no money, and working as a sales person, who seldom sold his merchandise, at the same time. He insisted to keep his son because he made a promise that his children must know who their father was unlike him who knew his father at 28. His wife left him, His friend refused to give him financial support during those difficult moments.
The happy ending was the man got accepted as stockbroker and his life getting better since then.
The movie was based on true story of Christofer Paul Gardner, CEO and founder of Gardner Rich. I did a little research about this man and I found out that his company was awarded by former President Bill Clinton as the best investment company in USA with assets of more than 1 million USD. At the end of the movie Christofer Gardner himself made appearance. I didn't notice at the first time but when I rewinded the movie, yeap, that's got to be him.
The result of my research is little bit different. In the movie Mr. Gardner became homeless before he became a stockbroker but I read in wikipedia that he was homeless after he got promoted as a stockbroker. Many details about his past was not presented in the movie. This is quite understandable because the movie's duration won't fit to cover all his interesting life story. One more thing, Chris Gardner and his son was homeless for almost a year. Quite endurance, wasn't it?
Amazing how a homeless man that lack of money, just a money for food and transportation, and had to support a toddler could manage this far. He was only high school-graduate person. His first dream was to become a doctor but due to many obstacles he had to alter his dream. He worked as a sales person for a medical supply company where he found a very little money to support his family. In the movie this was the reason why his wife left him.
The movie taught me something that starting enterpreneurship doesn't have to be young and single. Chris Gardner found his way to do this. He was over 28 at that moment and he had a son to support. I was too influenced by those silicon valley giants.
Yes, the world belongs to creative people. Must think some way that others hasn't think of it! Let me quote words from Chris Gardner to his son. It said more less like this "Don't let anyone, including myself, say that you can't do anything. If you have a dream then protect it!".
I have a dream and it isn't like to-have-a-dream dream. A real dream. Actually it was two dreams twisted together. This twisted dream was heavily influenced by previous heroes I knew before this guy. And this dream is very hard to achieve since I got rejected several times. Does this mean I can achieve happiness like Chris Gardner if I alter my dream? Hmm happiness and money sure are difficult to separate, aren't they?
  Add to Technorati Favorites
Google