In practicing marital arts, when it was time to spar, I always had to check my emotions and my intent on the deck. Did I dislike this person, did I want to teach them a lesson, did I need to punch them hard, or just graze them? Was I angry after a long work day and should not be fighting on the deck?
In the film, Jet Li wants to be the best fighter. He fights and fights. He challenges every good fighter in China. His life becomes all about winning. About challenging. About having the best reputation and being adored by all. His followers manage his fights and he has adoring fans. His ego was huge and he treated people poorly. He always had to be first at any cost and he was out of touch with his emotions and had a hair trigger temper.
In the film, Jet Li suffers many horrendous atrocities He ends up just about dead. He hits bottom and has to rebuild his life slowly and steadily. The story is about how he recovered and learned about the simple things in life. Once he got back into competition , years later, he had an new perspective on competition and he had learned about himself through it.
Like Jet Li in the film, I too have learned a lot about myself through competition. In the race yesterday, for example, as the pack ran away from me at the start line, I had to ask myself if winning was the goal. It was not. What was my goal? What did I need to do at that very moment? I just needed to keep moving forward and get to the finish line. That was all. I was competing with myself this day...and that was a great enough challenge to accomplish. And I did it.
And as the Universe would have it, a competitor in my age group. came back along the inner field of the track and ran me in...telling me I was almost there...I could do it. And I did.
It is through competition that you learn about yourself and exactly what you are made of.
