Enter the Dragon

There is a video going around the Internet that shows the late Bruce Lee (his actual name was Lee Jun-fan ) playing Ping-Pong with his nunchuks.  It's pretty impressive and very cool to watch - unfortunately, it's not true.  The video first appeared in 2008 in an advertisement for the Nokia N96 Limited Edition Bruce Lee cell phone and has had over 20 million views.  It's impressive what you can create with technology today - the video of Bruce Lee playing Ping-Pong was created specifically for this commercial advertisement and for the release of the cell phone line bearing his name.  Regardless, it's still a cool video to watch!


Bruce Lee was certainly an incredible athlete, but he was more than just a martial artist and television/movie star.  He studied both Asian and Western philosophy his entire life and was greatly influenced by Taoism and Buddhism.  The Indian philosopher and writer, Jiddu Krishnamurti was a major influence as well.  His martial arts were largely a metaphor for his philosophical beliefs and teachings. 


I have posted about his philosophy before (see HRO: Commitment to Resilience from November 22, 2016).  In addition to one of my favorite lessons ("Be like water my friend"), I also really like the following quote:


"I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine."


Think about that for a minute.  It's really a powerful lesson.  We don't need to live up to someone else's expectations for us.  Why should we?  What really matters is how we feel about ourselves.  We should be living up to our own expectations - and in fact, in many cases, we likely have higher expectations for ourselves than others do for us anyway.


I am reminded (once again) of the teachings of the ancient Stoics.  Seneca once said, "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."  We shouldn't compare ourselves or compete with others.  It's more important to compare ourselves to our own standards, not those of others.  Ryan Holiday, author of the "Daily Stoic" once interviewed the entrepreneur, Sam Altman, who said:


“I think one thing that is a really important thing to strive for is being internally driven, being driven to compete with yourself, not with other people. If you compete with other people, you end up in this mimetic trap, and you sort of play this tournament, and if you win, you lose. But if you’re competing with yourself, and all you’re trying to do is — for the own self-satisfaction and for also the impact you have on the world and the duty you feel to do that — be the best possible version you can, there is no limit to how far that can drive someone to perform. And I think that is something you see — even though it looks like athletes are competing with each other — when you talk to a really great, absolute top-of-the-field athlete, it’s their own time they’re going against.”


There is a famous prayer by the philosopher, Fritz Perls, called the Gestalt Prayer.  It is simple, yet amazingly powerful:

I do my thing and you do your thing.

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

So there you have it.  Be internally driven.  Live up to our own standards, not those of others.  Do your thing.  And always, be like water my friend...