Text and Photo by Nora Vasconcelos
Not son long ago I read on the news the story of a English man who presented his resignation by writing it on the icing of a cake.
What motivated this action was his recently born child and his desire to spend more time with him, what he’d be able to do while taking care of his cake business.
This story made me think about a couple of recent movies I’d seen, based on books that talk about this desire to by happy while trying to achieve at the same time a succesful career.
One of these movies was The Pursuit of Happiness, based on the true story of Chris Gartner. The film shares all the difficult moments that Gartner had to go through from being completely broke to become a multi millionaire business man.
From the very begining, Gartner had in mind what he wanted to get in his life, and he worked hard and made lots of sacrifices to become one of the most well recognized brokers in the world. It was then when he found happiness.
The other movie that made me think about this topic was The devil wears Prada, based on the book under the same title. Here, a young woman who’s recently finished her journalisim studies accepts a job that makes her forget about everything. Very soon, her job becomes her life, and she racionalizes this situation like a temporary sacrifice in order for her to advance in her career.
However, after some time, she realizes that she’s on the way to become someone she doesn’t recognizes, and that she doesn’t even like. It’s then, when she’s able to see that what’s really important to her is the happiness that she finds surounded by her true friends, in the city she likes, and then, she finds a job that allows her to be herself accompanied by the people she loves.
While going through all these thoughts, a recently published ebook caught my attention, it’s called A reasonable man, by Oscar Hughes.
This book takes the readers inside of a plane trip where a particular conversation between two men attracts the attention of the passangers around.
As the plane advances, these people discuss about the decisions they’ve made regarding their jobs and their desire to achieve success, and how these decisions have affected their personal lives.
This situation made me remember a quote from the Numb3rs TV series that goes: “A great job doesn’t compare to a great life”.
What I could say in the end, is that success is whenever happiness is, and that happiness can be found in the biggest achievments as well as in the little things that life can offer.
