Wisdom

Will Smith:

I feel very, very confident that the keys to life for me are reading and running. The idea that there are millions and billions of people who have lived before us, and they had problems and they solved them and they wrote it in a book somewhere - there is no new problem that we can have that we have to figure out by ourselves. There's no relationship issue, there is no issue with your parents or your brother or your government, there is no issue we can have that somebody didn't already write a thousand years ago in a book. So, for me, that concept of reading is bittersweet because you know it's in a book somewhere but you've got to find the right one that is going to give you the proper information. I said reading and running and the running aspect is how can you connect with your weakness. When you get on the treadmill you deprive yourself of oxygen. What kind of person you are will come out very, very quickly. You're either the type of person who will say you're going to run three miles or you stop the treadmill at 2.94 and you hit it and you call 2.94 3 miles, or you get off after a mile, or you're the type of person that runs hard through the finish line and when you get to 3.0 you realize, "˜God, I could really do 5,' and you go ahead and do two more. And that little person talks to you and says, 'Man, do you feel our knee? We should stop. I feel we should stop ourselves right now. This is not healthy anymore.' When you learn to get command over that person on that treadmill, you learn to get command over that person in your life. That's the same person that tells you, 'Man, that girl's got some big breasts. Listen, we don't have to do nothing, let's just go the hotel room together.' That's the same person. Getting command of that person has been really important."

:coold:

I've definitely noticed that little person in my head when I run. He used to bitch about everything. "Oh, your calves hurt! Oh, your back hurts! Oh, it's hard to breathe."

For me, I've learned to drown him out with music. I'd set checkpoints on distances that I have to complete without slowing down, and over time I'd get to those checkpoints thinking, "Hey, I think I can go a little bit longer."

It's funny cuz since I've started running, I've noticed the word "marathon" thrown around a lot more. I mean, I'm only running 1.2 miles at a time and a marathon is a freakin' 26+ mile run. But there's a lot of people that do marathons...and they all must've started out at a modest number like that at some point, right?

Keys to Life: Running & Reading

Will Smith:

I feel very, very confident that the keys to life for me are reading and running. The idea that there are millions and billions of people who have lived before us, and they had problems and they solved them and they wrote it in a book somewhere - there is no new problem that we can have that we have to figure out by ourselves. There's no relationship issue, there is no issue with your parents or your brother or your government, there is no issue we can have that somebody didn't already write a thousand years ago in a book. So, for me, that concept of reading is bittersweet because you know it's in a book somewhere but you've got to find the right one that is going to give you the proper information. I said reading and running and the running aspect is how can you connect with your weakness. When you get on the treadmill you deprive yourself of oxygen. What kind of person you are will come out very, very quickly. You're either the type of person who will say you're going to run three miles or you stop the treadmill at 2.94 and you hit it and you call 2.94 3 miles, or you get off after a mile, or you're the type of person that runs hard through the finish line and when you get to 3.0 you realize, "˜God, I could really do 5,' and you go ahead and do two more. And that little person talks to you and says, 'Man, do you feel our knee? We should stop. I feel we should stop ourselves right now. This is not healthy anymore.' When you learn to get command over that person on that treadmill, you learn to get command over that person in your life. That's the same person that tells you, 'Man, that girl's got some big breasts. Listen, we don't have to do nothing, let's just go the hotel room together.' That's the same person. Getting command of that person has been really important."

:coold:

I've definitely noticed that little person in my head when I run. He used to bitch about everything. "Oh, your calves hurt! Oh, your back hurts! Oh, it's hard to breathe."

For me, I've learned to drown him out with music. I'd set checkpoints on distances that I have to complete without slowing down, and over time I'd get to those checkpoints thinking, "Hey, I think I can go a little bit longer."

It's funny cuz since I've started running, I've noticed the word "marathon" thrown around a lot more. I mean, I'm only running 1.2 miles at a time and a marathon is a freakin' 26+ mile run. But there's a lot of people that do marathons...and they all must've started out at a modest number like that at some point, right?