pursuit of happiness

friday night i watched "the pursuit of happiness" with will smith. i had seen ads for the movie when it came out and was sure that it promised to be a happy go lucky tale of a man's story of being homeless and his triumphant life afterwards.

what i got was a sobering story of one man's quest and determination to pick him up from his current, and heartwrenching, situation. it turned out to be not quite what i expected and at first i was bothered by this. i wanted to see he and his son ride off into the sunset of their new happy life now that he has found a stable job but the more i think about it i like the way it ended.

because really, being happy is a pursuit. plain and simple. pursuit to me denotes that it is a journey and that it requires effort. there are a lot of factors in life that could seemingly allow one to not be happy but as abraham lincoln said, we're only as happy as we make up our minds to be. i couldn't agree more.

the next morning i took a run into the city and ran by several homeless people. i am so accustomed to seeing them that they honestly they don't affect me anymore. but this morning i tried to make it a point to look in their eyes and wonder what their life has been like to get them where they are. so many of them seemed so resigned to what life had dealt them.

i walked away with more of an appreciation for the power of our attitude and just what determination can do. there truly is nothing that you can't do if you set your mind to it. that thought intimidates me and my first reaction is one of saddness for accomplishments and goals not attained that i know deep down could of been. but more than that it fills me with a great sense of power and motivation. the sky is the limit my friends as to what we can do and accomplish...