In Pursuit

A few evenings ago, despite my best intentions to head to bed early and get some much needed recovery from my current training, I instead became wrapped up in one of my favorite movies, The Pursuit of Happyness. In the tear-jerker of a film, Will Smith plays real life "obstacle-hurdler", Chris Gardner who overcomes an avalanche of adversity to become a successful stockbroker. Yes, the movie even manages to make stockbrokers sympathetic characters, and it is guaranteed to make your stomach turn at the thought of the excuses you've made over the past week.


The movie borrows its title from Thomas Jefferson's famous Declaration of Independence line, that all men are entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In the film, during one of the several voice-over epiphanies, Smith's character comments on the incredible foresight Jefferson had to include the word pursuit. As Smith relates, "maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?" My pessimism has its limits, so I can't buy the stock Smith's selling that we can never know true happiness. But I do believe the point he makes, and Jefferson's foresight reveal a timeless truth that is lost, but desperately needed, today.

In writing the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson knew there was no guarantee that the "American experiment" would be a success. Heck, he didn't even know if the "American experiment" would survive. What he did know was that it was worth pursuing, whatever the outcome. Jefferson understood that the real value lay not in the end product, but in the process required to create it. The glory was not in the goal, but in the gauntlet.

Cynically, I often wonder what men like Jefferson would think about our world today. How would their love of the pursuit, their desire to make dreams reality, translate today? Would Jefferson's words be reduced to a 140-character tweet? Would Franklin be found saying, "Stay up late and hit the snooze an extra time"?

Our goal-oriented society has certainly produced results, and for this I am grateful. But "keeping our eyes on the prize" seems to have created myopia. We no longer see value in the pursuit. We seek to find the fastest way up the mountain; the path of least resistance. In racing to the finish line, we miss the race. (Fill in your choice cliche here). But the real cost of this drive is a generation that operates under the illusion that the goal will simply arrive, that the hurdles will pass by on their own.

What Jefferson knew was that to achieve independence, or happiness, or greatness, you needed to be passionate about the pursuit. You needed to embrace the challenges come what may. In the end, it was never about the goal. Jefferson knew the prize would eventually tarnish, the medal around our neck would eventually be taken of and stored in a cardboard box in the basement. What remained were the callouses on our palms, the blisters on our heels, and the warm sense of satisfaction drawn from the journey.