Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Using No Way As A Way, Having No Limitation As A Limitation

Warrior, muscular, aggressive, martial artist etc. We have all known him with these adjectives. But rarely do we recognize a philosopher in him. "There are no limits", a philosophy he built himself on and later made it a core of his style called "Jeet Kune Do". Bruce Lee was not God gifted by birth, but achieved what he was through relentless training and a belief that there are no limits. A true masterpiece of personal leadership, where his colleagues rank him as one of the strongest men in the world on pound for pound basis. 



"Low aim is the worst crime a man has"

One of the Lee's students, Silliphant relates an interesting story about Lee's attitude towards progressive resistance as his refusal to let a person underestimate their own potential. 

"Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We'd run the three miles in twenty one or twenty two minutes. Just under the eight minutes a mile (running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six and a half minutes per mile). So this morning he said to me, "We are going to go five." I said, "Bruce I can't go five. I am a helluva lot older than you are, and I can't do five." He said, "When we get to three, we will shift gears and it's only two more and you will do it." i said "Okay, hell I will go for it." So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile, and I'm okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I'm tired, my heart's pounding, I can't go any more and so I say to him, "Bruce, if I run any more," - and we are still running - "if I run any more, I am liable to have a heart attack and die." He said, "Then die". It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterwards I went to the shower and then wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know "Why did you say that?" he said, "Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. there are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."




4 comments:

  1. Very inspiring..I like it..Thanks for sharing : )

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  2. Wow..very inspiring...great story Jamil..thnk you...

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  3. I like it jameel :) :) It is uplifting and a push forward message :)

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  4. I totally agree with this thesis.Thanks Jameel, for this inspiring piece of writing.

    Most of the time we become victim by our limiting minds:may be I can't go there, something like that. My belief is that two things can change our lives:hard work and luck. And luck favors those who favors themselves by doing handwork.

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