Jet Li coming out of retirement to share his wisdom on Youtube was not on my 2026 bingo card. There’s been a Bruce Lee–shaped hole in the world since 1973, and while no one will ever quite fill it, it’s wonderful to see more martial arts legends pass on what they have learned.
Starting with a podcast with his daughter and a book announcement, one of Li’s themes is bound to be mindfulness: learning how to exist without wanting to find happiness in the now. In the latter, Li briefly sums up his story. In broken but beautiful English, he explains he was driven by want most of his life. Even after he had made it, he still wanted more. More compliments on his films. More people receiving help from his charity. There was always something to chase.
But in 2004, Li almost died during a tsunami in the Maldives. Then, he had two more death scares in a short period of time. It made him think. Deeply. And that’s when he began studying meditation and Buddhism. Today, Li is 62 years old. “Now, I’m living in the world, [and] everything [is] okay! Okay is okay. Not okay? Also okay!”
In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle makes a strong argument for presence: In the now, you can deal with anything. Even if you’re in a bad situation, outside of your survival being threatened, there’s rarely anything terrible happening in the moment. And if your survival was threatened, you wouldn’t think at all. You’d just act and do your best.
Are you sitting in a chair getting yelled at, perhaps even fired, by your boss? It’s not okay, but it’s also kind of okay. Afterwards, you’ll go home and figure out what’s next. You might not like needles, but the moments leading up to your latest vaccination are far worse than the little prick that confirms it’s happening. And by the time you realize you’re having a breakup conversation, you’re already done with the hardest part: understanding you’re not a good match for one another.
I hope it’s only the first of many, but it’s a big lesson Li shared to kick off his next adventure. It takes more than a day to learn and a lifetime to practice, but it sure is one hell of a start: Okay is okay. And not okay? Is also okay.
