The Pursuit of Happyness

I know it seems like all my posts lately are about movies, but two weeks off leaves a lot of free time to do whatever you want... and I like movies. I saw this one last night with my wife. I've heard two people put this film in the same category as Rudy (which is definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it).
The Pursuit of Happyness (spelled incorrectly on purpose- you have to see the movie to understand... and, if you haven't seen the movie and are planning to, I don't want to ruin it for you so you may not want to read this post until after you see it. Don't say I didn't warn you.) was heart-warming and sent that great American message that you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it. Unfortunately, I don't think that is entirely true. And if something isn't entirely true then we probably mean that it isn't true but we all want to think that it is. I recently posted about a book I'd been reading called Let Your Life Speak. In that book, Parker Palmer pulls the curtain back on this myth.
In the movie, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) tells his son that he ought not to spend too much time on the basketball court because he probably will only be an average player at best. In response his son is obviously disappointed and dejected. Seeing this, Gardner then tells his son to never allow anyone to tell him that he can't do something. I want to believe him but I don't. Sometimes people are right when they tell us that we can't do something. Sometimes others see things about ourselves that allow them to know that a certain career path may be the wrong one for us and we are blind to it.
In Finding a Job You Can Love, Ralph Mattson and Arthur Miller talk about determining your "central motivational thrust". In the movie, Chris Gardner goes through this process. He knows he has a way with people and gradually realizes he has also always had a knack for math, and it's a rubiks cube that seems to be the final clue that he has this gift. So the movie is a great story about a guy who didn't just decide one day to be a stock broker, he discovered that he those cards were already in the hand he'd been dealt. Had the movie been about his desire to become an NBA player it would have been horrible and nobody would have gone to see it, why... because he wouldn't have made the NBA and who wants to watch a movie about failure - most feel too close the that idea already.
My point is that it's a great story but it's not a story about someone deciding to do something and then doing it - although that may seem to be the message. It's really a story about someone who discovered the gifts that they had and learned how to maximize them in a career. I wonder what the movie would have been like had it focused on any of the other twenty guys who worked so hard and didn't get the internship.