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Translator: Leslie Gauthier Reviewer: Joanna Pietrulewicz
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Bruce Lee is my father,
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and he is best well-known as a martial artist
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and an action film star,
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as I'm sure most of you know.
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He died when I was four years old,
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but I have a really deep memory of him.
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I don't have those long-form, storied memories that you do when you're older,
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but the memory that I do have is of the feeling of him.
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I remember his energy,
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his presence,
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his love --
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the safety of it,
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the power of it,
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the radiance of it.
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And to me that memory is very deep and personal.
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And it is the memory of the quality of his essential nature.
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What a lot of people don't know about my father
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is that he was also a philosopher.
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He had a very ever-evolving philosophy
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that he lived,
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and it is that distinction -- that he lived his philosophy
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and didn't just espouse his philosophy --
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that made him the force of nature that he was, and still engages us today.
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His wisdom has salvaged me many times in my life:
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when my brother died,
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when my heart's been broken,
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whenever I have faced a challenge to my mind, my body or my spirit,
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the way that he expressed himself has lifted me up.
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And so I come to you today not as a researcher
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or an educator or a guru
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or even a life coach,
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but as a student of Bruce Lee --
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as his daughter,
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and also as a student of my own life.
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So ...
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my big burning question that I want you all to consider today is ...
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how are you?
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Let me elaborate.
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Whenever anyone would ask my mom what my father was like,
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she would say, "How he was in front of the camera,
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how you saw him in his films,
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how you saw him in his interviews
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was, in fact, exactly how he was."
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There were not multiple Bruce Lees.
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There was not public Bruce Lee and private Bruce Lee,
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or teacher Bruce Lee and actor Bruce Lee and family man Bruce Lee.
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There was just one unified, total Bruce Lee.
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And that Bruce Lee had a very deep, philosophical life practice
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called self-actualization.
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You've probably heard that term before.
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It's also known as how to be yourself in the best way possible.
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And that Bruce Lee said this:
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"When I look around, I always learn something
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and that is to be always yourself,
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and to express yourself and have faith in yourself.
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Don't go out and find a successful personality and duplicate it,
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but rather start from the very root of your being,
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which is 'How can I be me?'"
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Many of us have done some soul-searching
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or at least some incessant thinking and worrying
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about things like our purpose, our passion, our impact,
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our values
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and our "reason for being."
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And that is sometimes considered our why.
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Why am I here? Why this life?
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What am I meant to be doing?
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If we can grab a little piece of that information,
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it can help to ground us and root us,
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and it can also point us in a direction,
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and typically what it points us to is our what.
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What we manifest in the world,
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what we have.
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So our job, our home, our hobbies and the like.
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But there's this little space in between the why and the what
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that often doesn't get our full attention,
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and that is our ...
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how.
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How we get there and the quality of that doing.
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And I want to offer that this is actually the most important part of the equation
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when it comes to our personal growth,
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our sense of wholeness
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and even the long-term impact that we make.
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How is the action that bridges the gap from the internal to the external.
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And bridging the gap is a very important concept
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for martial artists like my father.
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It's how you get from point A to point B.
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It's how you get from here to your target under the most vital of circumstances.
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And so it makes all the difference.
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Do you get there as an amateur? Are you sloppy?
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Are you wild, chaotic,
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sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you're not lucky?
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Or are you a warrior?
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Are you confident?
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Are you focused?
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Are you skilled?
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Are you intuitive?
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Are you expressive, creative, aware?
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So I want to talk to you today about your how in your life.
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So we do a little bit of --
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we spend a little time in existential crisis
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over "Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?"
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and we put a ton of effort into our what --
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our job, our career, our partner that we have
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and the hobbies we pursue.
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But I want us to consider
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that our how is the expression of our why
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in every what,
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whether we're aware of it or not.
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And so let's take an example.
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Let's say that I have a value of kindness.
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I'm all about kindness,
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I feel really natural being kind,
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I want to see more kindness in the world.
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Is that kindness --
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is that value in the result
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or is it in the doing?
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Are you trying to be kind when it's hard to be kind?
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Can you do something you don't want to do kindly,
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like fire someone?
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Can you leave a relationship with kindness?
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If kindness is the value,
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then are you trying to express it
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in the whole spectrum of your doing --
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and trying to do that?
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Or are you just doing it when it's easy?
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So I want us to think about that for a moment
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and consider, you know, if we come home
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and we're kind and generous and loving with our kids,
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but then we go to work
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and we are dismissive
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and rude to our assistant
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and we treat them like a subhuman,
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then there is a fragmentation in the beingness of our value.
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And so I want us to consider that how we are in our lives
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is in fact how we are.
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Meaning, if I am the kind of person
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that walks down the street and smiles at people
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and says "hi" as I walk past them on the sidewalk,
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then that is how I am.
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But if I'm also the kind of person who makes fun of my brother
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every chance that I get behind his back,
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that is also the kind of person that I am.
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And ultimately how we are
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makes up the totality of the picture of who we are.
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And so I want to talk about how do we unite these pieces
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if we have any fragmentation.
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I want to understand how we embody ourselves
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as our one and only self.
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How do we actualize the whole self?
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My father said, "All goals apart from the means are an illusion.
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There will never be means to ends --
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only means.
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And I am means.
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I am what I started with
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and when it is all over,
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I will be all that is left."
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So you can employ a systematic approach to training and practicing,
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but you can't employ a systematic approach to actually living
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because life is a process not a goal.
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It is a means and not an end.
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So "to obtain enlightenment" --
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and I'm going to say self-actualize,
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to be self-actualized or to obtain wholeness --
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"emphasis should fall NOT on the cultivation
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of the particular department" --
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all of our whats --
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"which then merges into the totality of who we are as a total human being,
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but rather, on the total human being
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that then enters into and unites those particular departments."
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You are your how.
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You --
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if you have some consciousness
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and you want to bring some practice,
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if you want to step into that warrior space
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around your how --
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how you express in every aspect of your life --
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then you get to be the artist of that expression.
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You get to step into that and claim it
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and exercise it
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and bring that beingness through your doingness
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into your havingness.
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And there you will find the most profound of your growth,
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you will find a sense of wholeness
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and ultimately, you will leave a lasting impact on your environment.
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My father was his how.
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He applied the execution of who he was
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to every aspect of his life.
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He was way more than that kung fu guy from the '70s.
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He was someone who worked very hard at actualizing his inner self
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and expressing it out into the world.
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And that laid the foundation for what continues to inspire us,
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engage us,
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excite us
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and attract us to him.
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He was the embodied example of living fully.
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He said, "I am means."
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And there are only means.
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So I'm going to ask you one more time.
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Thank you for listening, and please consider,
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for you,
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across the spectrum of your doing,
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how are you?
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Thank you.
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(Applause)