Those who know me know that I am a huge fan of ''Star Wars.'' Patients who come to see me will notice memorabilia scattered about my office. But before you start making assumptions, allow me to put your mind at rest. I do not have a tattoo of the Millennium Falcon on my back (or anywhere else on my body) and I do not know the model of the X-wing fighter flown by Wedge Antilles in ''Episode IV: A New Hope.'' Instead, I am a fan of the story and certainly the life lessons from ''Star Wars.''
From the first installment of the ''Star Wars'' franchise in 1977, these films have offered guidance and perspectives that were not just relevant to intergalactic cowboys, but to anyone watching as stories unfold on the screen. The now famous quotes — such as “Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.” — have become an integral part of our culture.
Whenever a new ''Star Wars'' film is released, I, like so many others, love being one of the first to see it. Unfortunately, the problem with being one of the first to see it is that I cannot talk about it with anyone for a while. But now that we are more than a month out from the release of ''The Last Jedi,'' and the fact that spoilers are present throughout the internet, it should be safe for me to share a few quotes that almost made me jump out of my seat in the packed theater.
The quotes come from one of my favorite characters, Yoda, who returns to the screen as a “force ghost” to offer Luke Skywalker life lessons. As Luke laments over his inability to adequately train a new generation of Jedi, he explains how his own history of failure and disappointment make him an inadequate teacher.
Yoda, listening to Luke’s remorse, simply responds, “The greatest teacher, failure is.” He explains that it is through our failures that we learn most about who we are and what we stand for. We learn which boundaries to cross and which ones to avoid. Were it not for failure, success would mean mundanity.
But Yoda did not end his lesson there. He talks about those who we teach, whether they are our children or our students. And when describing their development, Yoda says, “We are what they grow beyond.”
What a message for parents and teachers alike! We all claim that we want our children to be better than us and to be more successful than us. But what do we do to encourage that to happen? Instead of allowing them to learn through trial and error (i.e., failure), we engineer and guarantee success. We cannot allow our children to experience the discomfort of falling short, so we build the facade of success. (Yes, it is a facade if your child makes an A on a project that you did for him.)
So what do we have to learn from Yoda? That we must accept and acknowledge our shortcomings. That we must appreciate opportunities to push ourselves by risking failure. That we must allow our children/students to explore their independence, even if it means that they will fall short of our (and their) expectations. He may not be a human, but Yoda sure does offer great insight into healthy human development.
Dr. Berney, a licensed psychologist with Psychological Associates of Central Florida in Lakeland, is a national speaker and the co-author of "Handbook for Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child." Listen to Dr. Berney's podcast, "The Mental Breakdown,” on iTunes and YouTube. You can submit questions or topics to Dr. Berney by email at drberney@pacflorida.com.