Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'?

“Trying” accepts the option that there might be failure. “Do” or “Do not” means that there can be no failure, only choice.

Master Yoda is a wise Jedi… oddly enough I came across a fortune-cookie paper that had this on it as I cleaned off my desk this morning.

I like @grumpyfish‘s explanation.

I worked in juvenile detention for awhile. This was a saying they used for the teens in there. They called certain words “weasel words” because they allow you to weasel out of your responsibilities. “Try” was one of those words. In this population it is a pretty effective tool. They certainly can’t “try” to stay off drugs. If that is their attitude it’s unlikely they will succeed. They can stay off drugs and fail which answers your question, what if you don’t know if you can do it. Well say you do, there is always the possibility of failure but at least you know you did your best at it.

Personally I don’t think this applies to all situations or populations however. There have been some instances in my own life, both small and big where the only option was to “try”.

Don’t pay attention to what Yoda says. He’s like 8 billion years old. His mind’s been lost a long time ago.

When I was a trainer for a kind of sales position (selling ideas door to door), we avoided saying “try.” Why? Because we weren’t interested in people who just tried. We were only interested in people who did.

I think there’s an attitude that you express when you get try out of your vocabulary. It says that your intention is to succeed, not just give it a shot. I think we were saying, “just do it!” long before Nike said it. No trying. Just do it! I figure that if I’m going to do something, I’ll do it. If I am only trying, I have learned not to bother. It’s not going to happen.

@grumpyfish True is said what you did.

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’?

Try is a do.

The idea of trying is irrelevant compared to results.
At the end if the day, you either succeed or fail.

I’d rather try and fail then just fail and not have tried.

The quote is saying that even if you try, if you don’t succeed, you haven’t done it… and doing is what counts. And it turns out that if you mentally phrase things like “I’m going to get my Ph.D” instead of “I’m going to try to get my Ph.D” you’re way more likely to actually succeed. Cool stuff.

Saying you will try accepts the failure option.

Failure is always an option.
@fireinthepriory: And it turns out that if you mentally phrase things like “I’m going to get my Ph.D” instead of “I’m going to try to get my Ph.D” you’re way more likely to actually succeed. Sounds very like magical thinking—mentally phrase things like “I will hover in the air using only the power of my will,” is it more likely that you’ll do so than if your mental phraseology is “I will try to hover in the air using only the power of my will?” If not, why not?

I could try to lift a car, but I would not be successful.

@ratboy Things that are actually based on personal motivation (like getting my PhD, or avoiding that suspicious looking fish behind me), rather than laws of physics do benefit from magical thinking.

Things like getting parking spaces, OTOH, don’t.