The Mandalorian: Finding your Purpose through Honor and Compromise

The author Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

As a recent college graduate, I have often asked myself, Why am I here? What life am I called to live? What is God’s purpose for me?

A lot of college students (and graduates) wonder if they are going to make it in the world and live their lives to the fullest. The real world is different once you’re out of college.

No longer are we studying for classes or hanging out with friends on the weekend. We are busy applying for jobs (if unemployed or working part-time), working (if employed full- or part-time), or going back to school for more education either in the same field of work or a different one.

We want to live our lives without worrying about making enough money to support ourselves and our families.

In short, we all want to find meaning and purpose: to live a good, meaningful life and know that we are in this moment for a reason.

Living a good, honorable life is important. But it is harder to achieve without compromising ourselves and our beliefs. We all reach a point in our lives where we need to make a decision and decide what life we’re going to live.

Life without change is impossible. We change as we get older or when we experience changes that affect us. It can be a new job, a new relationship, moving to a new city or state, going to college, or any number of possibilities. In a lot of ways, we need to change how we live and see things differently so that we learn to grow more and become better men and women.

 

That’s what the Mandalorian discovers in the Disney+ live-action television series, “The Mandalorian.”

Set five years after the events of “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi,” “The Mandalorian” follows a bounty hunter known as the Mandalorian (played by Pedro Pascal). He is a no-nonsense man who learns to be honorable without compromising who he is or his Mandalorian Creed. Even though he gives up his life as a bounty hunter, he starts living a meaningful life and finds his purpose.

 

In the first episode of Season One, the Mandalorian takes a job from remnants of the Galactic Empire to retrieve an asset, who is later revealed to be a baby (“The Child”). He succeeds in bringing the Child in to the Imperials, but is suspicious of their intentions.

 

The Mandalorian becomes uneasy and intends to takes a job as far away as he can from the Child. He is conflicted because the Child had saved his life against a mudhorn, giving him time to kill the creature. In the Mandalorian’s mind, the Child did not know he was his “enemy” because he was bringing him in for Beskar steel, a metal that Mandalorians use to craft their armor.

 

In other words, the Mandalorian owes a debt to the Child.

 

Yet bounty hunters are supposed to move on to the next job and not ask questions once they deliver the target to a client.

 

In life, a lot of us tend to run away from our problems. We tell ourselves “I’ll do that later,” but we never get around to it. We put it off till later, which almost never comes around. Or like Simba in “The Lion King,” we run away from our problems until someone knocks some sense into us.

 

But there comes a time when something weighs heavily on us and we can’t push it away. We need to do it even if we (initially) don’t want to. For a new parent, it is getting up in the middle of the night to take care of the baby. For the single person, it is going out there and pursuing a relationship.

 

For the Mandalorian, it means going back for the Child and saving him.

 

The Mandalorian knows that by rescuing the Child, he will be breaking his Bounty Hunter Guild Code and be hunted down until the Imperials get the Child back.

 

When he learns that the Imperials intend to kill the Child, the Mandalorian makes his decision. He chooses to compromise his beliefs and do the honorable thing by saving the Child, giving up his life in the Guild to protect him.

 

In the seventh and eighth episodes, The Mandalorian and his allies return to Nevarro (the Guild’s base of operations) and face off against the Imperial forces. They try to escape with the Child through the sewer tunnels under the city, where the Mandalorians’ hideout is located. There, the Mandalorian finds the female Mandalorian Armorer (a leader among the Mandalorians) again.

 

After seeing the Child for herself, the Armorer understands why the Mandalorian went through the trouble to save it. She then tasks the Mandalorian with caring for the Child until it is reunited with its own kind or when it comes of age and decides to follow the Mandalorian way of life. 

 

The Mandalorian is hesitant to take in the Child as his “foundling,” but he accepts it. While he wasn’t born a Mandalorian, he chose to follow The Mandalorians’ Creed and honor it after they found and raised him and he came of age. He won’t compromise those beliefs.

And so, the Armorer gives the Mandalorian his signet, an honor among the Mandalorians. She designs it as a symbol that shows he and the Child are tied to each other.

While the Mandalorian compromised his Guild Code, he didn’t compromise when it came to his Mandalorian Creed and their way of life.

 

The Mandalorian saved the Child, but the Child ended up saving him. The Child helped him find his place in life, his purpose, what he is called to do. It gave him a good, meaningful life, allowing him to earn his signet.

 

No matter what stage we are at in life, we need to recognize the areas in our life where we can compromise and where we can’t. It can help us learn who we are and what areas we can improve in. That will help us realize and affirm what is truly important to us and what gives us a meaningful life.

 

When we have a clear goal like the Mandalorian, we can find our purpose through honor and compromise and live our lives to the fullest.