You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.  – Christopher Gardner

I had the pleasure of rewatching the excellent The Pursuit of Happyness yesterday. If you’ve missed it, I suggest you grab a copy right away and find the time to watch it. Warning: This post contains spoilers.

In short, Will Smith plays the role of Christopher Gardner, a man stuck in his own life and struggling to get by while keeping his wife happy and his son safe and full. The audience watches, some in tears, as Christopher works to keep his family together and provide for them. He faces numerious challenges, and each and every one of them seems to bring him closer to ruin. Meanwhile he applies for an internship at a prestigious broker firm, and despite his lack of education he is determined to make it work.

Every time he seems to be getting a little ahead he hits some kind of wall, either it be parking tickets, jail or tax collectiors taking his meagre savings. He has to sleep in a public restroom with his son, run from a taxi bill, see his wife leave him while trying to sell bad medical equipment just to stay alive. Inbetween all his problems and caring for his small son he works to get that internship.

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about 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 that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that? – Christopher Gardner

So what can we learn from Christopher Gardner?

1. Never give up. Despite the whole world seeming to work against him, he never gave up. There are times everybody wants to lay down and give up, and how we handle those times are an important part of who we will become.
2. Accept help. Christopher accepted help and support from people he met, and he made that help count. His skills with people helped him enormously.
3. You should aim high. With just a high school diploma, he aimed for a job as a stockbroker in a major firm. Hard work, perseverence and his never-say-die attitude eneabled him to edge out his competition despite their advantage in education and fundings.
4. Focus. His ability to focus on his one goal is an important part of his success. To put it simple: anything not leading us towards our goals are merely distractions. By eliminating as many distractions as possible we see our goal clearly and can spend the most time working towards it.

Christopher Gardner is a real person, and the movie is based on a real story. There is also a popular book available. If you want to learn more about him, visit the wiki. And – watch the movie. It’s great!

The important thing about that freedom train, is it’s got to climb mountains. We ALL have to climb mountains, you know. Mountains that go way up high, and mountains that go deep and low. Yes, we know what those mountains are here at Glide. We sing about them. – Reverend Williams