A Mason's Work

The one day mindset is a specific kind of trap. Once I have my act together, once I've earned the credential, once I've become the man who — all of it moves your agency to a future self who will never actually arrive, because the act of deferring keeps denying what's available right now. The gap can only be closed in the present moment. That's the only place it exists. Brian connects this directly

Show Notes

The one day mindset is a specific kind of trap. Once I have my act together, once I've earned the credential, once I've become the man who — all of it moves your agency to a future self who will never actually arrive, because the act of deferring keeps denying what's available right now. The gap can only be closed in the present moment. That's the only place it exists.
Brian connects this directly to the Master Mason degree, not as a credential to hold but as an orientation to practice. The raised Mason is not someone who has been granted permission to be capable. He is someone who understands that in imperfect conditions, in this moment, the work of making something whole is always available. Waiting for better conditions is an abdication of that responsibility. The best version of yourself is not a future project — it is whoever is acting right now with the most integrity available to him.
  • How the one day mindset structurally denies present-moment agency
  • The Master Mason degree as orientation rather than achievement
  • Creating the perfect moment from imperfect conditions
  • The difference between dreaming about becoming and the work of becoming
  • Practical immediacy: doing the healthy, authentic, capable thing right now
This is not passive, and it is not abstract. The needle moves when you act on what you already know, with what you already have, in the moment you are actually in.
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Creators and Guests

Host
Brian Mattocks
Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] So we've talked about this a little bit this week and the idea that one day you're going to be the man who whatever that very notion of one day, this if only mind that you get this once I achieve this or once I've got my act together or one day I'll be able to.
[00:25] All of those move your agency to a future version of yourself in this kind of identity MacGuffin that will never arrive.
[00:38] Because by putting it away in the future as something that will happen one day, you deny that in the present moment.
[00:48] Don't wait.
[00:49] You can be the person right now that you want to be.
[00:55] You can do the things right now that you want to do.
[00:59] And we talked about this yesterday.
[01:01] When you use your feelings as a filter for what the present moment provides, you can cultivate all of that right now.
[01:09] If you want this to be funny, it can be funny right now.
[01:17] If you want this to be sublime, it can be sublime right now.
[01:22] The Master Mason degree that you go through when you were raised isn't about giving you this credential to hold.
[01:33] It's about an orientation you practice.
[01:35] It's about an understanding that in the full accountability of the present moment, you have the capacity in the moment to create from the imperfect conditions in the world, the perfect moment.
[01:52] When we stop doing this, when we fail to create that perfection, that Ashlar in the moment right now, that's a failure of using the Master Mason responsibility and role and function and all that kind of stuff.
[02:10] It's an abdication.
[02:12] It's a deferring responsibility to some future agency that is more capable.
[02:18] And the reality is right now is all you got, dude.
[02:22] You can only close the gap right now.
[02:27] And if you get addicted to this idea that one day you're going to be the better man, one day you're going to be healthy, well, vibrant, funny, multilingual, whatever, you know, independently wealthy.
[02:42] If you put all of that in this one day future, you're denying access to it right now.
[02:48] You can feel wealthy right now.
[02:50] You can feel powerful right now.
[02:52] You can feel capable in the moment.
[02:56] And when you start that process, you move out of the dreaming state and into the work of the actualized man.
[03:08] This isn't passive.
[03:10] This isn't like, oh, we're going to create a list of goals as a way to stave off actually doing those things.
[03:18] Go, you know, you want to be healthy?
[03:20] Go be healthy right now.
[03:22] Go do the healthy thing right now.
[03:26] Turn off the podcast.
[03:27] Go for a walk.
[03:29] Go for a hike.
[03:30] Go do a pushup.
[03:32] Put the donut down.
[03:34] There is always in the present moment through the filter of what you're feeling a better solution right now that you can take on, a better activity you can take on right now to move the needle forward.
[03:48] And in this way, you get out of this process of creating these false objectives, these things, these outcomes that you get attached to, and you move into the experience of becoming as opposed to making becoming something that happens way later on.
[04:07] The best version of yourself is the one living right now.
[04:16] Go do the best thing you can do right now.