Introduction
Resilience and Perseverance are the greatest qualities that enable us realize our dreams. Once a goal is set, it is the perseverance and resilience that keeps us on track and ensures that we achieve the goal. When one knows exactly what he/she wants and is fully determined to achieve it, he/she gets it whatever the cost. The book Jonathan Livingston seagull gives a true account of what can be achieved with resilience and perseverance. The movie Pursuit of Happyness also focuses on the same theme and reveals how success can be achieved no matter the obstacles. No matter the situations we are in, success must surely come if we know what we want and keep working towards realizing it. It only takes resilience and perseverance, as depicted in the two sources.
Analysis
Everyone dreams of success; however, it doesn’t come on a silver platter – you must work for it. Nothing great can be achieved without resilience and perseverance, and the greater the perseverance, the greater the reward. This is the case depicted in Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston seagull and the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, directed by Gabriele Muccino.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the main character in the story, is resilient and persevering. He has identified what he wants, and sets to find it whatever the cost. Jonathan aspires to fly, not for food, as the other seagulls, but just for the sake of flying. He wanted to “know what he can do in the air and what he can’t.” While his peers squabbled for morsels of food, he spent most of his time practicing. As he practices speed, Jonathan meets various misadventures.
In his pursuit of perfect flight, Jonathan meets various obstacles. However, his resilience enables him overcome the obstacles and achieve his dream. First, his attempts end in desperate failures, but this doesn’t stop him. He resigns from being part of the flock in order to achieve his goals. He loses almost everything: his health, family, and friends, and even his home. He is banished from his flock, and as an outcast, he remains a lonely seagull, though very determined to realize his dream. The obstacles do not stop Jonathan from pursuing his dream. While Jonathan makes remarkable success in his perfect flight, the gull Council views this as a reckless irresponsibility and tells him that he is shameless and doesn’t understand the purpose of gull life. To them, gull life entails eating and living as long as possible. At the Far Cliffs, he remains lonely and sad, but this doesn’t stop him. He continues to pursue his dream. He eventually succeeds.
It is the resilience of Jonathan that took him to greater heights. Despite all the obstacles, Jonathan is able to recover fast enough and focus on his dream. He doesn’t look back or lose the focus. He is determined to achieve his dream.
In the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner, the main character is faced with lots of setbacks in his pursuit of happiness. However, his resilience and perseverance see him through. Gardner and his wife Linda have invested the family savings into high-tech bone density scanners which Gardner plans to sell to the San Francisco healthcare community. However, this doesn’t happen as planned. The sales are unsuccessful; their family finances are dragged downwards, and the situation increasingly becomes disparate. The five-year-old son, Christopher, is caught in the middle. Gardner is determined to build a happy life for himself and his family. He lands on a competitive but nonpaying internship in one of the investment firms. The rent piles and they face eviction. Linda, however, sees the situation as unbearable and abandons the family, leaving them with nothing. Gardner understands that success at the internship will definitely lead him to a lucrative job. However, he must face the challenges, including spending nights with his son in homeless shelters. His efforts finally pay back when he is offered the position.
Gardner has been faced with several obstacles; however, resilience keeps him on track. In his efforts to find the true happiness he desires, he meets series of setbacks: unsuccessful sale of the scanners, the wife abandons them, the internship doesn’t pay, and they are evicted from the house, and are remain homeless. However, these setbacks do not stop him. He doesn’t terminate the internship to look for a paying job. He believes he must succeed at the internship in order to get a lucrative job and realize his dream of happiness. Resilience and perseverance makes Gardner overcome all the obstacles and achieve his dreams.
Just as Jonathan and Gardner, every obstacle should be viewed as an opportunity. A failure gives one an opportunity to continue trying – trying for the best. Obstacles or setbacks should not stop one from realizing his dreams. You only need to be resilient and focused on your course.
A persevering person is one with continued efforts to achieve something no matter the difficulties, failures, or oppositions. The reward of perseverance is success. For Jonathan, perseverance enabled him discover a controlled high-speed dive that allowed him perfect his training and obtain abundant food. His perseverance, later, enabled him meet a group of advanced gulls like him, who took him and led him to a higher level of consciousness (a sort of heaven for gulls). After achieving his dream, Jonathan returns to help the other ordinary gulls (who banished him) to discover the ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ in them. For Gardner, it was perseverance that enabled him realize his dreams.
In the words of Richard Bach, “We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome." We must be resilient and persevering in order to realize our dreams.
References
Bach, R., 1973. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Retrieved October 21, 2012 from http://lib.ru/RBACH/seagullengl.txt
Pursuit of Happyness [DVD] (2006). Gabriele Muccino – Director.
