Article by Josh Lipovetsky

In Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, a motivated man living on the last of his means. Chris is constantly looking for a consistent quality of life, but seems to get beaten down at every road. A few times throughout the movie, Gardner expresses his thoughts on happiness, and whether or not it is actually attainable. Happiness can be looked at in many ways, but I will outline two of them: Short-Term and Long-Term happiness.

Short-Term happiness is achievable by anyone. Regardless of your age, gender, social status, economic status, etc. It can be experienced everyday. The exciting feeling of getting that paycheck, the excitement of watching your favorite movie, the internal joy of expressing gratitude, or it can be the motivational nudge received when you complete an activity/goal. We may not notice, but feelings of happiness occur often throughout our lives, we just need to know how to look for it. It can strike us when we need it most: In the Pursuit of Happyness, Chris gains short-term happiness when he sells each bone density scanner for 0. It is the happiness that he will be able to sustain his family for another month. And it also provides him with enough happiness to accomplish his long term goal of becoming a stock broker.

Long-Term happiness is much more difficult to notice in our everyday lives. 60% of our LT (long-term) happiness is predetermined at birth (genes, heredity), and the other 40% is determined by what we do in our lives. Some people are genetically inclined to be more happy than others. But regardless, we all have our long-term goals, set with the intention of making us happier. We tell ourselves, “I am going to finally be happy when I achieve this goal”. But when the goal is achieved, the happiness soon goes away, and we are looking for more things to make us happy. Long-Term happiness is very difficult to notice; and is a gift of living. Try to monitor your happiness levels for a day, and try to notice how happy you are.

We are all different in virtually unlimited ways, but we are all looking for happiness. Happiness can be experienced in life everyday, in both the short and long term. Look for both, and be twice as happy. The Pursuit of Happyness inspired me to write about the different types of happiness in our lives. Whether short-term or long-term, we all have something to be happy about.

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