1. I am a movie buff and spend most of my spare time watching movies.
2. I mostly watch sci-fi or action movies but recently I watched a movie which was actually recommended to me by my father.
3. He told me that after watching this movie I will be a changed person as this movie teaches some real and hard lessons about life and society in general and he was absolutely true and now I have recommended almost all of the my friends to see this movie at least once.
4. The movie I am talking about is titled ‘Pursuit of Happiness’.
5. The protagonist in the movie whose name is John Walter is played by the famous actor Will Smith.
6. The movie is about his life struggles and how he finally overcomes all the hurdles with his sheer perseverance and tenacity.
7. John Walter is a man in his mid-forties and is jobless.
8. He has a 7 year old son.
9. He lives in one room apartment and daily searches for menial jobs to pay for the rent and put the food on the table for himself and his son.
10. There are days when could not get any job and he would come home without any food, and that night he would tell stories to his starving son so that he can go to sleep without eating food.
11. In spite of all these hardships John is a strong willed person and always looks for ways to improve his situation.
12. One day he reads in a newspaper that there is an opening in a brokerage firm but in order to apply for that job the candidate must have basic knowledge of financial fundamentals.
13. John makes up his mind that he would not apply but also get his job.
14. He buys a couple of books on finance and after working hard for whole day and putting his son to sleep he would go out on street to read those books.
15. That becomes his routine for next one month and everyday he barely sleeps for two hours.
16. But he has been shown to be a person with indomitable spirit and never say die attitude.
17. Finally when he thinks that he is ready for the job interview he applies for the job.
18. Luckily he gets a call for the interview the next week.
19. His interview is scheduled at 2 pm and before that he took a day job since he still needs the money to pay for the apartment rent and food.
20. On the day of the interview he took the job of road painting.
21. He had planned to finish his quota of job by 1 pm and then go back to his apartment change his clothes and then leave for the interview.
22. But unfortunately on that day one of the crew members called in sick so the contractor told all workers that they have to put in extra half an hour and those who do not would not get paid.
23. This complicated the matters for John who badly needed both money from the job as well as that brokerage job.
24. Being a responsible father he decides to put in the extra half an hour so that he can feed his son in the night and leaves for the interview directly from the job site in his dishevelled clothes.
25. When he reached the office of brokerage firm he saw other candidates sitting there in their corporate suits with neck ties and well polished shoes, while John was standing there in his sneakers and white shirt spoiled with different colors.
26. The interview started and candidates were called in one by one.
27. Some of the candidates looked satisfied while other came out of the interview room with a dejected look which depicted their experience inside the room.
28. When John’s turn came his heart was pounding, he gently opened the door and entered the room.
29. At first glance everybody was shocked at the appearance of John.
30. The panel was about to casually reject him when John requested just five minutes to explain his situation.
31. Then he tells about his whole life situation, how hard has he prepared for this interview and the reason why he came to interview looking like this.
32. After hearing his side of the story the panellists got interested and impressed by his tenacity.
33. They were looking for someone like John who never gives up but still there was technical side of the job that had to be catered to so one of the panellists asked John about the world of finance and all the knowledge of fundamentals that were required to be even considered for the job.
34. John answered all the questions with utmost aplomb and every member of the panel was mighty impressed by his sound knowledge of world of finance.
35. One of the panellists even complemented him by saying that his knowledge superseded the knowledge of all candidates who appeared before him with flashy degrees but no practical knowledge of either finance or life.
36. John knew his interview went well but also knew that odds were against him because of his age since these brokerage firms prefer to recruit young people who could be moulded by the management.
37. He waited for the call back from the firm and for next ten days there was no response and then suddenly he gets a call from the front office of the firm that the partners of the firm want to meet him again but the receptionist did not confirm whether he has got the job or not.
38. This time John appears for the meeting in a proper suit and the moment he enters the office the same panel is sitting there who looked a bit bemused after seeing John in suit since they still had this image of John in white shirt full of colors.
39. The head of the panel started the conversation and told John that under normal circumstances they would not hire someone in his forties and with no prior experience but they were mighty impressed by his knowledge of financial world and more by his attitude towards life and work. So they offered him the position of junior broker at the firm.
40. For a moment John thought he was dreaming, he simply could not believe his ears and started crying because this the first good news he has heard in his life for a long long time.
41. He immediately accepts the offer and spends rest of the day with his son to celebrate this achievement.
42. After watching this movie I sat down with my father and he asked what did I learn from the movie.
43. I told him that I learnt two important lessons, one that a person should never stop trying to improve his situation and everyday should be spent on becoming a better person than yesterday by learning something new, and second lesson was that there are not guarantees in life, good situation can turn into bad and bad situation can turn into good in matter of days, so we should be prepared for that and never get disheartened or discouraged no matter what life throws at us.