The command could not be located /usr/bin is not included

To add the example_file path to the environmental variable, I did the following:
$ gedit ~/.bashrc
and add the following code at the end of the file
export PATH=~/example_file/lib/
$ source ~/.bashrc

The tragedy happend!!!

The command could not be located because `/usr/bin` is not included in the 
PATH environment variable. clear: command not found

Then I realized that I incorrectly changed the PATH, so common commands such as ls, find, and even ‘vi’ did work. I can only modify files with the full absolute path.
$ /usr/bin/gedit ~/.bashrc
Add the command like this:
export PATH=~/example_file/lib/:/$PATH

Restart the terminal, it works!