This morning before making Mother’s Day breakfast (French Toast, duh) I got up early to journal a bit, sip coffee and beat the final chapter of a video game, Jedi Fallen Order. It’s been a fun time! Fallen Order is an adventure game set in the Star Wars universe where a survivor of the Jedi purge, Cal Kestis, is grappling with his guilt over not saving his Jedi master during Order 66. He was just a child. There was nothing he could have done. The game is a quest through a series of obstacles that help Cal to remember his long lost training, reawakening dormant Force skills he had suppressed in order to stay hidden and alive during the rise of the Empire.
There is something I relearned playing this game I want you to think about.
Fallen Order has an optional boss battle early on in the game that has sparked a rather sensational meme. That of the Oggdo Bogdo. It’s a demon frog monster placed in the game far before your character is leveled up and ready to win handily. It’s an optional battle, and very, very hard. You don’t have to enter this creature's lair in order to proceed in the game. I wasn’t the only person duped into fighting this thing by the lure of a treasure chest in his cave. I somehow thought winning this fight was of great importance, only to die maybe 30 times. I got so mad. I was not having fun anymore. My daughter was observing and around my 20th defeat with steam seeping from my ears, I remember her quietly collecting her things and going upstairs before she witnessed an eruption. That’s…not good, y’all.
In times like this, I wish I had remembered the Jedi way. “The Jedi do not seek aggression, but we stand against it,” says Jaro Tapal, the deceased Jedi Master of Cal in a flashback of the game. This is why the Jedi (in theory) employ Force Push in Star Wars, to put distance between themselves and an enemy, maybe creating an opportunity to spare them the lethal Lightsaber slash. Maybe to avoid unnecessary conflict. But, if you play stupid games…like fighting the Oggdo Bogdo, who is bothering nobody in his little lair, you may win stupid prizes.

If you manage to kill this thing, or you come back to him later in the game after leveling up and becoming stronger….you win a Pink Poncho. Unless you’re a captain of irony or just have very special fashion tastes, this is not so great prize for the frustration you endured facing this unholy polliwog. Side quests in games are incredible exercises in persistence and earned reward. You go far out of your way and overcome an obstacle that wasn’t “necessary” but was worthwhile. Kudos to Jedi Fallen Order for this reminder that you can be occasionally led astray by this gun-hoe approach to growth.
“Adventure (scoff) Excitement (scoff) A Jedi craves not these things,” - Yoda
There does not always have to be mortal struggle. There are alternatives to fighting. Stay focused.
Whether it’s with your sibling, parent, spouse or coworker…be thoughtful in whether or not the conflict you’re lurching toward is necessary. Is the fight you wanna pick about control? Is it about you wanting to make a point? Projecting mastery? Think about recent fights you’ve had any why you had them. Are you certain it was what you’d call “the good fight.” Perhaps you need to be more disciplined and stay focused on more pressing matters.
But, but, but…
It is also true that avoiding conflict is a doomed pursuit. There will always be instigators and bad actors who bring that mess to your door.
And finish them you must. Train for those moments. Face those moments. For obstacles and challenge laid directly in your path is the way to excellence,
This is why the game also teaches you the ability of Wall-Running. In another flashback Cal remembers his training in the Jedi Temple. “What stands in the way, becomes the way,” says his Jedi master. This is ripped quite literally from the pages of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote “Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
More on turning obstacles into opportunity, another time.
This is the way.