Life bears challenges and trials we need to overcome. In many instances, it is the journey through these moments of crisis, not the crisis itself that develops our character. “The Pursuit of Happyness” uses music, camera positioning, and camera angles to present to the viewers the moods, and tones which help demonstrating Chris Gardner’s perseverance, commitment, and determination.
Perseverance can be described as the continual effort to do or achieve something through difficulties, failure or opposition. All Chris Gardner’s difficulties stem from his financial crisis. He is unable to pay taxes and provide for his family, which results in them being poor. Chris demonstrates perseverance in putting a continual effort to overcome challenges
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I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was.” This quotation validates Chris Gardner’s determination to be a part of his son’s life as he grows up. He wants to be the father that he never had when he was a child. Because of his determination to be a part of his son’s childhood, everything he does is to create a better future for his son. He is so determined to be with Christopher that when Linda told him that she was running away with Christopher in a telephone call, he hurried back home without thinking twice. The film depicts this scene with soft lighting and dark tone to convey feelings of sadness, depression and foreboding that Chris, Linda, and Christopher all experience. When Chris arrives at the home he finds out that both Linda and Christopher had left. The next day he finds Christopher at his daycare and tells Linda to never take Christopher away from him. In another scene Chris tells Christopher to not focus on sports but focus on his brain instead. Sad piano music plays in the background as Christopher packs up his basketball after his dad rebukes him from going pro. The sad piano music makes the scene depressing and invokes the audience to feel a similar sadness to the one felt by Christopher. When Chris realizes that he has disappointed his son he gives him advice, “Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not
In contrast to Aristotle, Roko Belic’s documentary “Happy” provides a fresh perspective that takes place far more recently. The film sets out to similar goals of Aristotle in defining the nature of happiness and exploring what makes different people happy in general. Unlike Aristotle, however, the film’s main argument refers to makes people happier. In this case, the film argues that merely “doing what you love” is what leads to happiness (Belic). The argument itself appears oddly self-serving, considering that message is what underlines the foundation of happiness, yet there is a subliminal message that a simpler lifestyle is what leads to what the film is trying to convince you of. The message itself is obviously addressed to Americans, considering
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.� Dale Carnegie believed that perseverance could overcome even the harshest obstacles. Perseverance is inspired by a purpose, an unsatisfied drive to achieve a goal. During a cataclysmic event, only people with a purpose endure.
In the essay Why Happiness, Why Now? Sara Ahmed talks about how one’s goal in life is to find happiness. Ahmed begins her essay with skepticism and her disbeliefs in happiness. She shows her interest in how happiness is linked to a person’s life choices. Ahmed also tries to dig deeper, and instead of asking an unanswerable question, “what is Happiness?” she asks questions about the role of happiness in one’s life.
There, Chris discovers that his father lives a double life with his ex-stepmother, Marcia. Chris rages about, “ divorcing them as my parents once and for all and never speak to either of those idiots again as long as I live" (64). With an untrustworthy family, he feels outcast and useless. He then only can relate to other outcasts for the remainder of the novel. When he gets a chance at conversing with ‘everyday’ people Chris rants about how ‘fake’ they are. Maybe his trip was his final destination because he eventually realizes he has nothing to come back to. He never plans for the future, just the present scenarios, like sending away $24,000 to charity. When the trip was coming to an end, it overwhelmed him, remembering all the things he still angers him. The trip to El Segundo, California, also arose a very dark: “Two years after Chris’s birth, Walt McCandless fathered another child with Marcia” (64). Chris feels tremendous rage and hurt by this secret. He feels his life is a lie because unveiling this unpublished mystery brings skepticism to everything else surrounding his inner circle and family. Lastly, Chris is extremely heart-broken that his father wasn’t satisfied enough by him. Chris is the type of personality that will go over the edge of sanity if no one is there to stop him. When he leaves his family for good, he was out in the
Humans are born with pursuits: some search for fame, some go after money, some seek achievements in professional fields, and some only wish their lives to be content . If one wants to become content with life, one should alter one’s old ways of living and embrace new things. Both in Cathy Jewison’s The Prospector’s Trail and Eva Lis Wuorio’s The Singing Silence, the main characters used to be dissatisfied with life. In search for true happiness, they begin to try things that they have never experienced before. At the end, the two protagonists find that their new activities can bring them happiness, and they start to live satisfying lives.
Dale Carnegie once expressed, “Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.” Analyzing this quote, it is crucial to note the underlining theme that happiness, true and genuine happiness, requires a shifting away from conformity and the status quo in order to discover the treasure found in one’s own self. Therefore, finding out who one’s self is mandates a state of solitude which acts like the green pastures by the still waters that restores the soul. However, with its roaring and hungry fire that sends up flutters of red and yellow and orange and white fireflies soaring into the carnivorous night, conflict is the key ingredient in shifting away from acquiescence and society’s present state of affairs.
“The good guy always wins” is a phrase we often hear growing up. Parents reassure their kids that the hero will win despite the trials he encounters. Joseph Campbell, who coined the term “monomyth”, identifies these trials as a part of a pattern in the hero’s journey. This pattern consists of separation, initiation, and return. Osmosis Jones goes through this pattern with only a few pieces missing. The hero in this story teaches others that giving up is not an option. One must have perseverance to complete a goal, in this case, to save Frank. The journey that Jones takes to help him get through the monomyth helps develop the theme of perseverance because he never gives up on what he wants.
Through these, the portrayal of the complex nature of happiness is shown to contribute to the enduring value of the film through the realistic style of the film and by showing different perspectives on the same person showing the audience that different people view actions in different
The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines perseverance as the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. In today’s society, there are so many walls and barriers that prevent humans from achieving their dreams and goals and people begin giving up. However, great poets such as Homer and famous music groups such as Mumford and Sons have used the strife of humanity to compose works that can be used to inspire and institute hope for humanity. With perseverance, there are three key aspects, struggle, loyalty, and strength. The struggle is what allows humans to learn, grow, and better themselves, the loyalty demonstrated provides motivation for success, and the personal strength allows the person to build
Atwood’s “Happy Endings” retells the same characters stories several times over, never deviating from clichéd gender roles while detailing the pursuit of love and life and a happy ending in the middle class. The predictability of each story and the actions each character carries out in response to specific events is an outline for how most of us carry on with our lives. We’re all looking for the house, the dog, the kids, the white picket fence, and we’d all like to die happy.
Many people show perseverance, including me. I showed perseverance when I failed a quiz and I knew to get my grade up I had to work harder and study more. I knew if my parents found out that I failed a quiz they would yell at me and would be disappointed on me for getting a bad grade on a quiz because I didn’t study. This factor contributes me to work harder, I learned that I need to work harder to succeed, like Salva, how he showed perseverance by looking for his family.
In the book, The How of Happiness, author and researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky sets her book apart from other self-awareness books by being the first to utilize empirical studies. She uses data gained through scientific method to provide support for her hypothesis. This hypothesis consists mainly of the idea that we have the ability to overcome genetic predisposition and circumstantial barriers to happiness by how we think and what we do. She emphasizes that being happier benefits ourselves, our family and our community. “The How of Happiness is science, and the happiness-increasing strategies that [she] and other social psychologists have developed are its key supporting players” (3).
Happiness can be easily defined as the state of well-being and contentment gained by personal life experiences through either direct or indirect connections with the world around us. The people we meet and the trails we go through in life add together to create a hopefully happy life. To be happy in life is indeed the only way to enjoy it. Therefore it’s no wonder that we all strive to achieve this idea of happiness. This interest in the search for true happiness has become a major factor in our modern age. Looking back at our history, the moods of many Americans have seemed to become stagnate even when we experience a rise in salaries and overall life expectance. This begs the question as to what then
Perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. Correctional environments take their toll on all who pass through the
...helps him not to give up. He takes hard actions during his struggle, but he had faith that everything will be okay. Everything will be okay as long as he works hard. In the end, Chris Gardner hard work helped him reach his overall goal, happiness.