The word “happiness” is purposely spelt wrongly, first reason because the movie emphasis on the topic of happiness and second, in the story, Chris Gardner (starring by Will Smith) sent his son to a day care where he found there was a word “happyness” spelt wrongly on the wall.  He complained to a Chinese guy but that guy did not know what Chris said.

This is a true story and Chris Gardner is now a multi millionaire.  His son in the film is the real son of Will Smith.

I have never come across this film, never knew about Chris Gardner until our last journey from Ipoh back to Kuching where we watched it on an express bus from Ipoh to LCCT.  Thanks to the bus driver that introduced us a good film.  Unlike what I normally do, I might have snapped and awaked, snapped and awaked again and again most of the time in the 3.5 hours journey, this time, I stucked my eyes on the TV… …  Last night I watched this movie again on DVD even it was very late in the midnight at 2am.  I wanted to learn again carefully what happiness is and how to pursuit it.

My heart was touched by Chris Gardner.  No matter how difficult his life was, he never gave up.  He put even more effort to pursuit his “happiness”.  He needed to sell 2 bone scanners monthly to different doctors in order to cover his monthly expenses, but he had not even sold one for quite some time…

Here comes a few scenes that inspired me on how to pursuit happiness:-

1. He told his son, “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something go get it.”

2. He attended an internship program where he received no salary for the first six month.  He need to be selected out of the 19 other candidates to get the job as a stock broker.  He put more effort than the others.  He need to make lots of calls in a day, and he said that without hanging up the phone but just use fingers to quickly cut the line between calls can save 8 minutes a day.

3. While he needed to read a thick book for the exam, he also needed to take care of his son alone (his wife left him) and he brought his son with him every evening rushing to queue up for a public shelter while he was broke.  There was a time he was behind the queue and failed to get the public shelter.  There was a time too where he and his son stay overnight in a train station washroom, and he locked the washroom.  He dropped his tear.

4. He was always running from one place to the other place in the film.

After struggling for months, he finally got his job and here comes the end of an almost 2-hours movie. 

I felt that I am luckier.  You can gain back your confidence after you watch this film.  He was broke, homeless and have to take care of his son, and he can overcome all the problems.  What else can’t you do?  What else can’t I achieve?

I suddenly thought of a blogger called homelessGuy, he did not update his blog for quite some time, I wonder how his life is now.  This guy was also homeless and stayed in his car for months.  Now do you think that you are lucky?  Go and get what you want and pursuit your happiness.

We need to protect our dreams.