Yoda's pretentious, misguided, passive-aggressive little quote.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

This quote, uttered by – who else? – green puppet Yoda, is often heralded as one of the most inspiring, uplifting, life-affirming, genuine, beautiful quotes ever uttered in the modern lexicon. It’s transcended its original role in Star Wars to be shared widely by people of all ages, at home, at school, by coaches, at work, and anywhere else you can possibly think of.

It’s succinct, beautiful, erudite.

Do I need to tell you what it means? I guess the little Muppet was trying to say that if you do something, actually achieve the goal 100 percent. . . or not at all. Don’t make an “attempt” at doing it – actually do do it. Completely and perfectly.

Okay, so. . . how does this help anyone? If somebody wants to do something, they aren’t machines. It’s not like they can employ zeros and ones to simply “choose” for the desired objective to be completed, mathematically at will.

We know that much.

In order for a desired task to “get” done by a human person, they do need to TRY to do it. Whether the task is perfectly routine or absurdly difficult, that doesn’t mean “trying” isn’t involved.

If Yoda meant for Luke to “do,” as in, “don’t half-ass it,” well then, just say that. You do have to TRY as the first step in COMPLETING what’s desired.

Let’s just consider the intention then, and disregard the accuracy of the words. Surely there’s nothing wrong with simply encouraging someone to reach a goal they’ve set. Using such powerful and coercive language may prove more inspiring than merely “suggesting” someone reach the goal.

Except when you consider that Yoda is effectively shaming whoever hears his quote. He is taking an honest valiant effort that does not succeed — and equating it with doing nothing altogether. If you give it your best shot and fail, it’s as if you didn’t make the attempt. After all, it’s do or do not, right there in the quote. There is no try.

By Yoda’s wisdom, getting started, being a novice, making marginal improvements, taking a failing risk, or even getting 99 percent of what was intended is just as bad as doing nothing.

So. . . go ahead and idolize this quote, if you want. I am not inspired by it. Personally, I haven’t even seen Star Wars, so maybe this entire argument is brought up at some point in the movie and I’m not even aware of it. Wouldn’t that be funny, if they just stopped The Empire Strikes Back cold right in the middle just to hash out this argument? And then attributed it to me? ✍︎