Wrong, Yoda was: For dads, try and try again is the only option

SALT LAKE CITY — Yoda, from Star Wars, is a favorite character of mine. But after an hour or three, a Diet Coke and buttered popcorn (real butter, please), wear thin his wisdom does.

His definitive statement, “Do or do not — there is no try,” may discourage good men from self-improvement. Take my attempt at using appropriate language for example.

"Angry words"

Some time ago, I promised my wife that I would stop swearing. Good husbands — and good dads for that matter — don’t swear. Nor do they raise their voice unless it's to warn children against shifts in the force or oncoming traffic. (This is according to my church men’s group that I have come to trust about these things. Of course, I only caught bits and pieces of the lesson as I may have been changing a diaper in the back of the room.)

When I was growing up, dads were universally praised from the pulpit. When the wedding toast was made, dear old dad, it was said, had always been strong and silent, and no one would claim to have heard an angry word pass through his manly lips.

If my kids do make such a comment from the pulpit at some future date, they will be talking about the guy who replaced me after I was tried ’n fried by lightning for words said after I ran over a chicken with a lawn mower.

Along the same vein, a newsman was recently fired and hired the same day for making a few word choices of his own on live TV. He was rewarded with a job offer on a national morning talk show.

So, am I looking in the mail for my new employee packet from ABC broadcasting? No. I am trying to figure out who these quiet, manly guys are. Certainly not anyone I know.

Admittedly, those in my church group aren’t all that, but they seem less prone to spurts of anger than others I know. They are trying to be better men, which includes watching their language.

Yoda had his faults as well. Though his pattern of speaking is somewhat convoluted, at least it can be printed in it’s entirety on ksl.com.

Influencing the kids

Some years ago, when my children started repeating my words, my wife thought I would be so mortified to have been such a poor example that I would be shamed into better word selection and more exemplary choices in phrasing.

That didn’t happen. If anything, my kids and I have bonded somewhat over our verbal breakdowns, and we clean it up when mom comes home.

I tell the kids that if they are foolish enough to use my “angry words” with mom around, then they get what they deserve. There will be none of this “but dad said that very same word yesterday to the Amway lady!”

It’s true. Dad did say it yesterday to the Amway lady. If you said it today in front of your mother, then I will wish you a pleasant tomorrow as you sleep on your bedroom floor tonight. Yoda was smart enough to have never used that language in front of his mother no matter how many X-wings he pulled out of the swamp.

OK, I admit that there is not much parental responsibility in that last paragraph. In my defense, up until recently I believed there was no pride in trying, only in doing. This I blame on that lovable bit of latex and rubber on a stick.

Advice for Yoda ... and dads everywhere

I have these few words for Yoda: Be listening to you, I will not. I choose to follow Emerson instead:

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased.”

Maybe Yoda meant to encourage young Luke to accept only success, which, as Ralph Waldo alluded, would come easier with repetition. My point to you, dear reader, is that neither philosopher chewed out the poor Amway lady in front of his kids.

Trying and trying again is much manlier than not doing anything because of ego, laziness or fear of falling on one's face.

There is always try — and often, there is try again.

To reiterate: My children will not be those praising their dad for never saying a word in anger. But they might say, possibly on the final edition of my nationally syndicated talk show (an offer arriving any day now), “He kept tying to better himself right up to the end."

I hope both Ralph Waldo and the Amway lady will agree.

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Davison Cheney writes "The Prodigal Dad" series weekly on ksl.com. See his other writings at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com and Twitter @DavisonCheney.*

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