I just finished watching, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, for probably the 10th time since it came out in 1993.  It still amazes me that in such a short life, Bruce was only 32 when he died, he was able to have such a huge impact on the world.  Bruce was my childhood hero.  The man who inspired me, and so many others, to train in the martial arts.  It staggers my imagination thinking about how much he accomplished by the young, tender age of 32.  International movie star, world renowned martial artist, teacher, author, father, husband.  A man truly ahead of his time.  A revolutionary thinker forging a place for martial arts on the world stage.

How much more could he have accomplished had he lived?  What else would he have done?

In the movie, when Bruce was just starting out his teaching career, he placed a pebble in Linda’s (his girlfriend and future wife) hand and told her to drop it.  He then explained to her how dropping a simple pebble in a pond creates larger and larger ripples moving out from the center.  She drops it and he smiles, “It has begun.”  40 years after his death, the ripples of his life and his teaching still move us and affect us.

Dying Young

I remember back in my sophomore year in high school English class, we were studying poetry and we read a poem called, “To An Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman.

To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields were glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s.

Our assignment was to write a similar poem about a famous person we admired who had also died young.  I chose to write about Bruce Lee.  The day our poems were read in school, I was absent due to being sick.  One of my friends told me how much our teacher loved my poem and how she had read it to the class as an example.  I was shocked.  I didn’t try to write for a an “A”.  I wrote from my heart.  From my passion.  This was an important lesson for me – people recognize and respond to passion.  You don’t have to be the most educated or the most skilled, but if you do something – anything – with passion, people will feel it.

Live With Passion

The moral of the story, kids, is that you don’t know for sure how much time you have.  Don’t waste it.  Live your passion to the fullest.  Don’t wait for next year, next month, next week, or even for tomorrow, it may never come.  Do it now, TODAY!

In the movie, Bruce Lee said, “The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”

What are you still doing here reading this?

Go out there and create a life worth remembering!