While entirely fictional, the enigmatic concept known as “The Force” is based on some very real principles.
The concept and the order are fictional, but the principles by which the Jedi lived their lives are excellent guides to living one’s life, especially amidst all the chaos of the modern world. For as long as the “Dark Side” of The Force is equated not to evil but to negative influences in one’s life, the principles of the Jedi Code can easily be used to form a personal philosophy for living a good life, complete with a healthy mental attitude.
Able to control one’s emotions was critical to a Jedi, as their tasks often required that they remain as objective as possible. Fear and anxiety can have negative effects on one’s decision-making, which in turn can wreak havoc on one’s life. By taking control of one’s stress and anxiety, separating it from the tasks that need to be done, you can effectively find better solutions to your problems than you would have if you let your anxiety affect your analysis of the situation. This concept does not advise denying one’s emotions, since doing so can result in more anxiety disorders and psychological issues than it solves.
The Jedi Order espoused the determined pursuit of knowledge. A little knowledge can help someone overcome the fear and angst that one encounters when exposed to a totally alien culture. In some cases, anxiety disorders can also be overcome simply by equipping one’s mind with sufficient knowledge about the source of the anxiety, thus allowing a person to better understand and face the problem.
Similar to the first principle, the Jedi believed that being too passionate about something was dangerous, as it could cloud one’s judgment and objectivity. For the people in their position, objectivity was critical in nearly all situations. The same can be said of pretty much everyone in the modern world. Emotions and passion can cloud our ability to make a good decisions, as well as have an adverse effect on our ability to recognize our mistakes and correct them to avert further damage. Being calm amidst the face of an impossible bureaucracy can go a long way to keeping one’s state of mental health stable and far away from “going postal.” As long as you don’t let your stress and anxiety build up by dwelling on the negative, then your mind is serene, and you can then make better decisions and take a clearer look at what is going on in one’s life.
The Jedi believed that when someone dies, they become one with The Force. This allowed them to see the death not as a negative event, but merely a transition that one was inevitably going to get past. Adapting this to modern life, negative events can be portrayed as the “death” the philosophy mentions, with “The Force” acting as a metaphor for life itself. In other words, it is basically stating that, regardless of all the negative events in one’s life, regardless of all the fear and anxiety, the nausea induced by corporate and familial duties, there is still life itself. To use the one metaphor to explain another, if something bad comes your way, take some time out to stop and smell the roses.
Taking all of the above principles into account, it is difficult to see how they could fail to lead to a better state of mind, even amidst the chaos of modern life.
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