Bruce Lee says to Start Living or Just Die

Alfred Hsing and Bruce Lee
Bruce and I after a workout. He looks more tired than me right?

I just ran across a motivational quote my friend Bruce once said – and I’m glad I read it. Things are fast changing for me as I prepare for another adventure (My Move to Beijing to work for Jet Li). Life and my lifestyle will change very soon! All for the best I hope. Anyways, I am very pressed at the moment to pack and tie up loose ends in LA and this quote is awesome because it tells me that I am acting in a way that is in line with Bruce Lee’s philosophy on living a fulfilling life.

Bruce Lee says to Start Living or Just Die

Here is the quote:

“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 eight minutes a mile [Note: when 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’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll 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’re still running-”if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I 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.”

A man must constantly exceed his level! Time to be a man!

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