Sequeira 1

Ian Sequeira

Mrs. Lucidi

Adv. Enlgish 1

16 October 2019

The Pursuit of Happiness

In ​The Pursuit of Happiness​, Chris displays great mental resilience and perseverance as

two important traits a person will need in life; furthermore, it shows that if you have adequate

sacrifices, hard work, and toughness, you can achieve your ultimate goal in life. In the beginning,

Chris is going around trying to sell bone density scanners that he spent his life savings on with

his wife and young son. Sooner than later, they start to struggle with money which causes many

bad events that assess his mental toughness. For Example, as money is low with no bright

outlook in view, the mom decides to leave for New York leaving Chris and her son behind

(Muccino). This tests his mind as Chris has to figure what the best thing for his son is and how

he will plan on getting a stable income. This decision would determine the rest of their lives so it

caused a great mental strain on his mind. The tension was so great that he even could have given

up on life, but his son kept him going and ultimately led him to decide on making it out of

poverty. If he hadn’t of done this, both of their lives would have been destroyed and not

amounted to anything that they longed for. Eventually, he landed a job at a stock brokerage. The

only downside was that the job wouldn’t pay unless he made it at the top of his class through a

trial that contained 20 people. Chris has to persevere through many scenes in the movie and fight

through it all. To illustrate, he works hard to acquire the job at the stock brokerage that he wants

dearly by working nonstop and doing everything in his power to be the best of the best
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(Muccino). Because of all his hard work, at last he obtains the job he's wanted for awhile and

secures the future for his son. This was all possible because of his level of perseverance that

brought him through every hardship that he had to experience on his journey through life. There

are many times he could have given up, but he powered through all the times while finding new

degrees of resilience in himself to keep going. Many people would have given up because of

these difficult situations, despite it blocking their path to success because they did not want to

persevere and keep going. This goes to show that if you persevere through all the hardships you

experience and have enough mental resilience to not give up, you will achieve your ultimate goal

in life.