"Life is about the journey, not the destination" is a quote that often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson and while it has been often quoted it seems we rarely take heed of the advice it gives.
We ignore it in our daily lives, we rush from task to task trying to get everything done. We told we need to have a 'side hustle' to either make additional money directly or use it to help better our chances in our current positions. How many time have you either sped down the highway or had someone speed by you, more worried about where they need to be and how soon can they get there? Sometimes there's a real reason behind these things, a deadline, needing to fund a vacation or catch up on bills, a family member injured, but more often, we're caught up in the need to speed.
Unfortunately, the same can frequently been seen in our fraternity.
How many times have you seen an individual rushed through their Lodge degrees?
How many times have you seen folks rush to join the other bodies?
The question that lies at the heart of all of this is why? Why the rush? Why the need to get to the end? In some cases, like a to do list that needs to get done to meet a deadline it makes sense, but why a life long journey?
Freemasonry is a life long pursuit of finding the best version of yourself. The degrees, rituals, books, and functions are all there to help you find that true self. Those items are not the end, they are guideposts along the way. So many go in search of joining and doing they miss out on the being, and the sights along the way. It's something that seems to be ingrained in our very being, we pursue the next challenge, we try to level our game, and miss out on so much.
Take a few minutes and do a quick search on YouTube for movie Easter Eggs in a movie you've watched and see just how many results come up. Now take and watch anyone one of them and see just how much you may have missed when you saw the movie. The same can be done for televisions shows. We miss so much along the journey to the end of the story that there's a whole genre of material out there to help us find what we overlooked.
So take a moment and give it some thought, are you more interested in completing the journey or the journey itself? Are you more interested in adding another dues card to your wallet or seeing the sights and learning something along the way.
Take your time, enjoy the journey, and remember, the path you're traveling doesn't have a true end, just another path to take and more to learn.