#69 The Easy Life

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” Sometimes this quote is misunderstood—out of context it seems like Bruce is encouraging you to toughen up because winter is coming. But these words are not about praying for the strength to fight against a hard life. Within the context of Bruce Lee’s philosophy of harmony, the “strength” Bruce is referring to is one of calm and flow. An easy life is not something you get because you pray for it or fight for it, the ease comes when you practice self-actualization and achieve peace of mind. If you only look at Bruce Lee as the ripped warrior, it is easy to misinterpret this quote to be about getting tough and developing physical strength to defend against a difficult life. When you understand who Bruce Lee was as a total human being, you know he could not have had the negative mentality that life was a constant struggle to be defended against. Bruce Lee was about keeping the mind on the positive and being in the flow. Endurance is about having the stamina to experience your whole life. It’s about inviting all of the experiences, including the challenges and catastrophes, because every experience has a lesson in it. “The good life is a process, it’s not a state of being. The good life constituted a direction selected by the total organism when there is freedom to move in any direction.” The first step in the good life process is freeing your mind from the limiting thoughts that are preventing you from engaging fully in life. “The cultivation of the spirit is elusive and difficult and the tendency toward it is rarely spontaneous.” You have to work at this, the cultivation of your spirit and root does not happen automatically. You cannot quit when it gets tough. “The true stillness is the stillness in movement.” If you develop your inner being and you have a strong root from which you function, then your life can be moving around you in a spiral of ups and down, but you at the root can maintain your stillness in the middle of it. “Wisdom does not consist in trying to wrest the good from the evil, but in learning to ride them as a cork adapts itself to the crests and troughs of the waves.” Take Action: What happens to you when you get thrown by life’s difficulties? Can you be more flexible and adaptable? Notice what kind of escape fantasy you have and when you have it. What are you praying for to take you out of your current life? Where are you trying to force instead of flow? #AAHA James Wong Howe was a Chinese American cinematographer born in 1899 and worked on over 130 films. In the 1930s and 1940s, Howe was one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood. He was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won twice for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963). Howe was prevented from becoming a U.S. citizen until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Prior to WWII, he met his wife and they married in Paris in 1937. Due to anti-miscegenation laws, the marriage would not be legally recognized in the U.S. until 1949. James Wong Howe died in 1976 at age 76. Howe, you were a creative and social pioneer, and we think you’re awesome! #BruceLeeMoment A moment from Daniel: “My wife and I went out of town to visit our parents over Thanksgiving, and we came back home on Sunday the 27th, I wasn't even aware that it was Bruce Lee's birthday. I previously went out and bought a inflatable Christmas Dragon for the yard, right after Halloween, in Bruce's honor of course. I put it up as soon as we got back home, which just happen to be his birthday, which would come to my attention through your podcast the following day. I just thought the Dragon was perfect and so was the timing, with his work being a more in depth influence on my life, as of the last 2 years.” Share your #AAHAs, #BruceLeeMoments, and #TakeAction progress with us at [email protected] Find the full version of our show notes at BruceLee.com/podcast