My “Good Will Hunting” Problem
A personal narrative told through the frame of Good Will Hunting.
I wondered if I was somehow letting myself or my family down. In May of 2015, I graduated from a two-year community college with no intention of transferring to a university. While in college, I had found a part-time job that became full-time upon graduation. The pay was good enough and the job was one that could become a career but I often thought about whether this was sufficient for me.
I wanted to be content with my choice to begin a career, even one that allowed for little advancement. I felt like Will Hunting.
Good Will Hunting: The question, or problem, wrapped in the title and plot of the movie had become relevant to my life. Matt Damon plays Will hunting who has the gift of an eidetic memory. His ability is found out when, while working as a janitor at MIT, he solves a difficult math problem posed by Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) to his students. Due to his rough lifestyle, Will finds himself in a situation to serve jail time or do math with Lambeau while also visiting with a counselor. Will chooses the latter option and meets with counselor, Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), who attempts to break down the barrier Will had built as he grew up in foster homes and sustained physical abuse from his guardians. Lambeau and McGuire realize Will’s potential and hope to make him see that he can do much more with his life than blue-collar work. As the title suggests, Will is trying to find what he wants from the world around him.
The problem I’m getting at is whether people of significant intelligence should be pressured towards a particular kind of life.
In Will Hunting’s case, his genius afforded him many opportunities that his friends, like Chuckie (Ben Affleck) and Morgan (Casey Affleck), could only dream about. Lambeau and McGuire have differing opinions about how Will should utilize his abilities; Lambeau directs Will towards a prestigious career that would make use of his mathematical acumen, McGuire just wants Will to determine who he wants to be. While their ends are different, Lambeau and McGuire prod Will to reach out and take hold of the opportunities and advantages that he has.
I am by no means the genius that Will Hunting is but schoolwork always came easy and college was never not an option. I had finished half of a Bachelor’s degree when I began to face my crisis. Was I wasting my time with this blue-collar job? Did I have some duty to gain a bachelor’s as a prerequisite to some greater happiness? Was the potential gain worth the time, effort, and money?
I was hunting for my own goodwill.
Surely this predicament isn’t solely my own. Throughout school, it wasn’t difficult to separate the exceptional minds from the rest of the student body. There was an expectation for those people to do amazing things, which meant getting amazing jobs; the extraordinary minds would find extraordinary careers. I find myself becoming empathetically disappointed when I see friends from high school “limiting” themselves, especially when I know that they had the same level of opportunity.
I decided that my path to achievement required me to enroll at a university and finish what I had started. I didn’t know what I would do with it but knew that I would have more opportunities if I completed a B.A. Now on the cusp of graduation, I’m reflecting on that choice.
As the film goes, Will appears to be at a great advantage over myself and others in my situation. Because of his genius, Will has companies jockeying to gain his employment. At this point in the film, though, Will doesn’t seem to recognize what he’s being offered.
Even best-friend Chuckie rebukes Will saying, “you’re sittin’ on a winnin’ lottery ticket,” and it would be an “insult to us [Chuckie, Morgan, and others]” not to cash it in. He concludes, “Hangin’ around here [working on a construction crew] is a fuckin’ waste of your time.”
The argument developed throughout the film suggests that Will would flourish by using his intellectual gift; he is meant for something more. McGuire points out that Will must have an indication of his capabilities.
He says,
“I just have a little question here. You could be a janitor anywhere. Why did you work at the most prestigious technical college in the whole fuckin’ world?”
Perhaps Will has a subconscious feeling of duty, or moral obligation, that is realized by working in academia. This duty perhaps coincided with his natural aspiration to do more for himself; his duty and desires lined up to an extent. But Will pushes back. He feels safe within his friend group where he’s always the smartest guy in the room. He doesn’t want to leave his bubble.
It may be ironically symbolic that while defending himself towards the beginning of the film, Will delivers a speech at his arraignment concerning liberty. He quotes, “Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girded too tight.” He goes on to argue with the prosecuting attorney about the rights afforded to him by the Constitution. Will believes in liberty and rights but denies himself from obtaining them. He recognizes that “Without liberty, man is a syncope”; without reaching out from his self, Will’s life is lost or wasted.
There is an ongoing rivalry between Lambeau and McGuire that demonstrates these perceptions of achievement and what is expected of Will. Lambeau, as an MIT professor, believes himself to be much more successful than his friend McGuire who teaches psychology at a community college. Lambeau wants Will to follow in his steps and even surpass his own ability. McGuire doesn’t feel like he’s wasted his life, rather he believes that he has pursued a meaningful existence. His expectations for Will are not as pressuring as Lambeau’s but they are still relevant to the argument.
It might be construed that McGuire diminishes blue-collar work during his talks with Will, but it seems more likely that McGuire is prompting Will to put effort into something; McGuire is attempting to combat the unmotivated mindset that Will has made for himself where things come easily or not at all.
As the film comes to its conclusion, Will decides to follow after the girl (Minnie Driver) whom he pushed away. He drops everything and drives off to meet her in California. This exemplifies his first step towards breaking out of his mold and doing something with his life. With this ending, Will does not act on the expectations of Lambeau but follows the promptings of McGuire. He is able to carve a path for himself where he is not a “lab rat” but is reaching for some greater purpose or happiness within his life.
Perhaps the purposefulness is what is expected from others, not significant achievement; While Will is pressured between these two mentors and their agendas, he is able to figure out his own desires. It is by his presumed duty, i.e., to seek higher achievement, that he finds his goodwill — that he finally figures out what he wants to do, what will make him happy.
So as I prepare to graduate within mere months, I evaluate if I have found that purpose. The contentment I thought I desired didn’t provide my life with much meaning. I was expected to achieve beyond that blue-collar job by others and myself. As I have reached out to fulfill that duty, I found a new world of possibilities for myself that I would have never realized otherwise.
And it does seem that this obligation is forced upon those of significant intelligence and while I felt pressure from others, it was my choice and inner longing to attend and finish college. Apart from being more marketable, I have found other joys in literature, philosophy, and many new friends and experiences. If I can reflect and say that I haven’t been wasting my life, then that’s enough meaning for me.
Like Will, I had to work through the many expectations placed upon me before understanding myself to know what I want. That contentment proved to be insufficient for me and my new desires of education and the career that follows after are enveloped in the purposefulness of myself, rather than expectations of others.
