Do or do not, there is no try ~ Yoda

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I love the quote from Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke was trying to lift his Xwing out of the bog (yes, I'm a Star Wars geek, haha)

Do, or do not. There is no try

I love this quote for many reasons, but if you're not on that plane of thinking then you may misconstrue what it means, because well, I've said before that the world is entirely subjective. 

It can also be pretty hard to hear for someone that is trying to make it somewhere but keeps hitting roadblocks along the way, or failing from time to time. It can roughly sound like he's saying make it or don't, there is no trying to make it. But we all know that you can't get anywhere without trying -- I know because I never quite understood the quote fully until I was older.

You won't be able to achieve anything if you don't try it first.

But at the heart of this message it navigates past the trying aspect. Because if we look at the word try it's rather passive. "Oh I'll try" can be used to shirk many responsibilities. It's the language used by people that aren't self-confident in what they are doing -- when you try something then it generally means that you might not like it, or you might not be interested in putting much effort into it.

This of course actually may not be what you mean of course, your trying might actually mean that you're going to do it or die trying, but it doesn't matter about you, because we don't say things to other people to tell ourselves things -- we say things to other people to state our intentions and keep or change the perceptions they may have about us. And it's all about perception. Like Yoda said, there is no try. Saying that you'll try isn't demonstrating that you're going to put any effort into it.

Okay, so what do I mean by that? Well, there's ways in which you can better state your intentions. Life is about small goals as well as big goals. Which sounds better:

I'm going to try and build my own blockchain

Sounds quite a high stakes statement -- also, there's always the option to back out of it if you can't do it. And palm off the sentiment with, "well, I DID try" -- of course I'm not saying this is what you'd do, but there is that option, and it only matters what other people perceive what you are saying, not what you are thinking -- else you'd never have said it, right?

What about:

I've finally hired the blockchain developer that we needed; we're now on our way to building our own blockchain

Which one fills you with more confidence? To me the first one seems very filled with skepticism and doubt, where as the second statement is action-orientated and filled with "doing" statements, which fills the reader / listener with confidence -- I learned this all from my wife. She's a linguist.

See, I first learned of language perception when my wife was always confused with what I meant. My favourite saying was, "I suppose" -- it's a saying I learned from my granddad that I liked, and I used it when I liked an idea and was in a comfortable state of mind. My wife said that might be great for me, but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the receiver thinks since I'm using that language as a way to answer them. "I suppose" to the general listener or reader seems that I'm generally uninterested, or unhappy about what it is that I'm agreeing with. It's not what I mean, but that doesn't matter at all.

Basically, it doesn't matter what you think about what you're saying, and that may come as a surprise to some of us because the world right now seems to tell us that it's only us that matters and no-one else, and everyone is fighting out a big dog fight to be heard, but no-one is really thinking about how their words have impact on others, from every side of the equation -- it's something I learned from being married to a linguist. Our words matter, not to us, but those on the receiving end. We can mean something entirely different to those that hear us -- and that's what matters. Choose your words carefully.

So there is only do or do not, there is no try.

You will make the steps to "do" whatever it is that you're going to do and the outcome of those actions will impact you in different ways depending how you handled it!

This is what I think Yoda meant, or how I experience those words.

But like I say -- the world is subjective! 



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