The Pursuit of Happyness

Just came in from seeing the Pursuit of Happyness (yes, I know that "happiness" is spelled with an "i" and not a "y" but this is how the movie spells it) with my son John. We actually began the father-son outing by seeing an absolutely horrible movie - Epic Movie. We were in the mood for a movie and it fit our time schedule - so we picked it. In a word: pathetic!. In two words: not good!

We made it through the first 30 minutes of it and then got up and walked out. I wish I could say that it was solely on the film's sinful content, but I can't. It was as raunchy of a PG-13 movie as I've ever seen, but there were other contributing factors:

- It wasn't funny
- The person who sat behind us had a doctorate in obnoxious behavior with a minor in annoying laugh.
- It made us uncomfortable.

So, we kindly excused ourselves (the 8 million other teens in the theater were nice enough to let us go) and headed to ask the manager if we could see another movie. We would've paid, but he was courteous enough to exchange our tickets for two to see, The Pursuit of Happyness" Because it started a while later, we grabbed some dinner and then sat down to enjoy the show.

It wasn't a "show" ... it was a story. A sad, brilliant, inspiring, joyful, brutal, and powerful story.

And we didn't "enjoy" it ... we engaged it. Or it engaged us. It was an emotional, mental, and spiritual experience.

I cannot tell you how highly I recommend this movie. Put it this way: I will be taking Kim tomorrow and seeing it for the second time within 24 hours. It is that good.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the movie:


Christopher Gardner (Will Smith's character) : "It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson, the declaration of independence, and our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I remember thinking; how did he know to put the pursuit part in there. That maybe happiness is something we can only pursue, and maybe actually we can never have it, no matter what. How did he know that?


Christopher Gardner (Will Smith's character): "Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. Not even me. All right?"
Christopher ( - Jr. - His son in the movie ) : "All right."

Martin Frohm (CEO of company Christopher is trying to get a job at> "What would you say if man walked in here with no shirt, and I gave him a job?"

Christopher Gardner: "He must have had on some really nice pants."

The movie stirred a question in my soul that I want so share with you:

"What is the 'one thing' that you would work so hard to accomplish/attain and let nothing stand in your way?"

Answer that and then pursue it with all you got.

You just might find "happyness"