In the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, the character Chris Gardner wonders why Thomas Jefferson chose the word “Pursuit” for happiness in America’s Declaration of Independence. It’s a word that means chasing, seeking. Does that mean we’re always hunting for happiness instead of having it handed to us at birth, like the rights to life, liberty, and equality?

For Gardner, happiness back then looked like the bright, smiling faces strolling past the stock brokerage’s window. He figured that’s where it came from and walked through the HR door to apply for a job—no college degree required. At the time, he was still lugging around a bone density scanner, trying to sell it to scrape by, pay off debts, and keep his crumbling family afloat.

So he took an unpaid gig at the brokerage for six months, lived homeless with his son for nearly a year, even sold his blood to fix that last scanner to sell for four weeks’ worth of cash.

This Black man with a weathered, unlucky face chased happiness through a storm of setbacks, but he never lost hope. Never gave up, no matter the cost. Never stopped searching for answers to his questions.

There’s a scene in the film where he tackles a Rubik’s Cube, that colorful puzzle so many were obsessed with back then. It’s a brain-teaser that stumps most, but he cracks it. Solving it right in front of the brokerage’s HR director lands him his shot at the job.

That Rubik’s Cube got me thinking about a college friend who once said she’s like one herself—twisting and turning endlessly, but with a steady core holding it all together. Chasing happiness has all these sides to it, and then you realize the truest kind might just be inside you all along.

I love the detail of “Happyness” misspelled on the wall of a classroom in a Chinese neighborhood. What it’s meant to say depends on who’s watching, but to me, it’s a nod to how we’ll never pin down a perfect definition of happiness. There’s always something a little off. It’s a concept that shifts with time, with moments, with what we’ve lived through. At 5, happiness is a superhero toy; at 10, it’s an A+ in class; at 20, it’s holding your first girlfriend’s hand; at 25, 30… it keeps changing.

I also love the weekend basketball scene between father and son:

“Listen, don’t ever let anyone tell you you can’t do something. Not even me. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“You’ve got a dream, you protect it. People can’t do something themselves, so they tell you you can’t either. If you want something, go get it yourself.”

Instead of a big finale, there’s this funny exchange during Gardner’s interview with HR. He’s a mess, still in paint-splattered clothes from fixing up his place:

“Why would I hire someone who doesn’t even have a shirt to wear?”

“Well, he must have some really nice pants then.”