The Pursuit of Happyness - Chris Gardner

The pursuit of Happyness is the autobiography of a man who grew up in conditions not optimal for creating a million-dollar Wall-Street analyst. But he did.

He presented himself as a very raw and real human being in the book, not trying to hide any of his misgivings with respect to himself or his personal life, neither trying to shy away from his expectations and what life really threw at him. Its a beautiful read, and in Chris’ own words, “If he can do it, I can”.

This seems to be one of the central themes of the book, he’s trying to tell me that his life was not perfect, his mind was not unwavering, he didn’t “let go” of personal relations or expectations, he didn’t stop dreaming ever. The only difference between him and a person who didn’t do it, is that he did it. “Walk the walk” you know. You gotta walk the walk.

And most of the times this walk is going to take you to places you don’t want to go, make you meet people you’d rather not meet, but the beauty is that, with each passing of the day, and with each new challenge, you can learn something you never knew. You will find someone, you must find someone, or something worthwhile. There is always room to extract knowledge, simply because there is always someone better than you.

# The audit

Its not just that “you can do it if you want to”, you must want it so bad, that no one can stop you from doing it. Personally, I lost it when the CEO of Bear Stearns calls Chris to tell him that the firm is not made from graudates but from PSDs (Poor, Smart and a deep Desire to be someone). I lost it because its so fucking true. The desire which is sometimes considered a sin is the one thing that changes you completely.

Desire leads to obession, and that leads you to wherever you want to go.

Hustle is the part of obsession. You see someone better? Go learn from them, outshine them, move on. No strings attached. You got one life. All your mistakes are yours only, and only you can fix them, own it, fix it, destroy it.

If there is one thing you should take away from this book, its that, no one decides your fate, because you have the power to change it, and change it you must.