Sorry, Yoda. There Is A Try.

He was right about a lot of other stuff, though.

Do or do not. There is no try.  It is standard one can set to achieve something.  I believe that thinking this can help motivate you.  But I also understand that the phrase “striving for perfection” does not imply you will achieve perfection.  It is in the doing and striving.  I am not the one to argue the validity of this belief, but I want to add that trying itself has enormous value, especially for an observer, and not necessarily the subject of the trying.

First, it is not scientific.  To try means to you accept possible failure, and failure is always an option.  Failure is crucial to learning, comprehension and growing.  Sometimes you have to find out how something does not work long before you figure out how it worked.  We do that in our own lives.  You may date the wrong type of guy for ten years and nothing comes of it.  You learn, and switch tack.  You go from shitty job to shitty job unhappily, then decide to go back to school.  You are trying to see what works.  If you are viewing those years of crappy relationships or dead-end jobs as failures, you can.  But it is your life and you can shape that interpretation.  You were not failing.  You were leaning how not to have a relationship and how not to make a living.  You can only do that through trying.

We also expect too much from others.  We are all humans and we are all lacking in some way.  For example, we all have established guidelines for contact with others in our lives.  It just happens.  As you get older, you understand that ‘trying’ to stay in touch is different with different people.  Each one of us has to formulate our relationship rules for each person.  It is the only way to successfully maneuver through this life.  Some people are day to day, some are week to week, some are bi-monthly and some are yearly.  If the week to week people become yearly, then something has changed.  Somebody is not trying.  If the yearly’s become monthly, then someone is trying harder.  If they stay the same, that is the level of commitment they can handle. 

Appreciating trying is also critical when someone is one a road of self-improvement.  Quitting drinking or smoking, losing weight, changing an attitude or learning more.  We all appreciate the trying.  That guy is down to half a pack a day but he used to smoke two packs a day.  That girl is still grumpy when I go to work but I hear she is in therapy and she is much better than she used to be.  We all say we’d like excellence as a standard but that is almost an affront to nature.  Nature is struggle after struggle and that implies a problem, and perfection is the absence of problems.  May I conclude that perfection is unnatural? Well, not really.  Snowflakes are perfect.  But perfection is not a human trait.  The struggle and the trying are perfectly human.

Imagine how difficult it is for someone who has had a death in the family to go out and be around people.  Think of that fiend who has struggled with depression for years and how much it takes to just have a good time.  Kids don’t know their strengths and weaknesses like adults; they are in a constant state of succeeding and failing. 

I assume there is a belief out there that accepting trying as a standard implies accepting defeat.  Or, we should constantly yearn to be something more than we are. Trying is not about participation trophies and not letting children fail.  It is the opposite. We need to accept failure and not demonize it. There can’t be shame attached to something that every human being endures!  The victory is in the attempt and a failure is just a failure.  So you suck at baseball. Move on. I guess you weren’t meant for the saxophone. Try the drums. Find another job. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

  How about this:  if you are constantly running toward excellence and perfection, you are always falling short.  You are doomed to a life of thinking you are not enough.  If you accept that even the best and brightest are on their own paths of trying, just as the rest of us are, you will have a life of minor and major accomplishments, and you can feel better about your journey.  You may also not look down on others who are failing more than you and not idolize those who have succeeded.  We are all just on millions of Chutes and Ladders boards, climbing up and getting knocked down.  But if we are trying, we can say we are still in the game.

That last line, “we can say we are still in the game”; did that work, or was it cheesy?  It just popped in there and I thought it had a nice ring to it, and it mirrored the Chutes and Ladders reference from the previous sentence.  I have issues when I sum up these things.  I always think they should have a definitive end.  Depending on the context, they almost sound like “One To Grow On” quotes or something from an after-school special. Oh well.  I tried.