A Mason's Work

[00:00] One of the things that we talked about throughout the course of this week's episodes is the nature of trying new things and creating new stuff and getting feedback and beginning to understand the fundamental truth that we're going to wrap up with this week.
[00:20] And the fundamental truth is that when we are growing and developing, the work we do should be focused on the process and not the outcomes.
[00:36] Focusing on the process allows you to appreciate the experience you're having in the moment, at the moment.
[00:43] Uh, focusing on the outcomes diminishes the role of the experience and focuses entirely on what you're creating.
[00:53] The problem with that is if you create something garbage, uh, you're going to feel garbage about the whole experience.
[01:00] Whereas if the process itself becomes part of the, the joy of the thing, the co-creation, the risks take, you know, risk, uh, embracing risk and change and all that kind of stuff.
[01:13] Um, if you can embrace the process, um, then the outcomes, you can tweak your process over time and the outcomes will change over time.
[01:25] But any one time you try and cook a new cuisine or any one time you try and make something or any one time you go on a hike or an outing or a conference or an adventure, any one of those experiences might be, um, absolutely awful or, you know, whatever reason.
[01:43] Um, it also could be the outlier and it could be that your first experience is the outlier.
[01:47] And so turning off those things over time, uh, because you had a single outcome that was bad or an outcome that was unfavorable, um, by turning off the process, you essentially deny yourself a whole range of experiences, which, uh, again, will stifle your growth and development.
[02:08] So let me translate this for, uh, for the younger generation.
[02:12] If you are busy trying to figure out the meaning of your life before you start it, uh, stop, that's a focus on the outcomes, focusing on understanding what the meaning of your life is, um, essentially is preventing you from finding it.
[02:29] It is through exploration and growth and development that you actually discover meaning it's in the process itself that meaning emerges.
[02:40] So same thing's true.
[02:43] If you're a seasoned, uh, you know, individual like, like myself, um, as you pursue this, as you pursue life, this, this focus on outcomes, this transactional nature that our society oftentimes pushes us into, um, diminishes what really is, uh, the experience itself and the place where the value actually is.
[03:08] Um, you don't raise children, um, you don't raise children, for example, so that they get to 21 and you're like, Hey, game over.
[03:18] Like, woohoo, no more, no more children.
[03:21] I have to worry about that anymore.
[03:21] Thank God.
[03:22] Um, um, you raise children because there's joy in the process of raising children because there is, uh, the satisfaction of watching an individual grow and develop and embrace themselves as a person.
[03:35] Uh, you, you do these things, not for the outcomes, but for the, the process itself.
[03:44] And there's joy in that, uh, Alan Watts describes it as if the outcome was the goal, the best songs in the world would just be the ending, right?
[03:54] Be the songs that end the quickest and loudest and bestest.
[03:58] Um, and, and we all know that's not true, right?
[04:00] We all know that, uh, it is the, the experiences, the savoring of the experiences that we create along the way.
[04:08] The outcome is, is almost coincidental in almost all of those cases.
[04:12] And in fact, for a lot of the most important things in life, if you tried to suggest that the outcome was the objective, um, you, you'd actually diminish and, and, uh, insult a lot of people.
[04:25] If marrying was the objective, then why fall in love?
[04:28] Just go get married, right?
[04:30] See how absurd that sounds.
[04:32] So when you, when you understand this, when you understand that the outcome focus that we have, um, oftentimes socially, because we're so sort of entrenched in this transactional way of thinking, um, that, that, that outcome focus is actually a significant part of the problem.
[04:47] You don't get the joy of discovery or the joy of exploration, uh, in everyday life because we have transacted that away.
[04:57] So, and you've, you've done this to yourself as much as society, the social pressures have done this.
[05:02] So I'm not trying to put it all on the world.
[05:04] This is, this is something that a lot of people kind of do as part of their growing up process.
[05:10] Um, don't, don't let go of that process orientation.
[05:15] Retain that ability to focus on the experience itself, even modifications to the experience.
[05:21] You know, it's entirely okay to say, you know what, make this even better.
[05:24] And then add that, whatever that is, um, and, and make that those experiences that you're having along the way, those processes that you're exploring and discovery and all of the wonder and curiosity and great things about living.
[05:38] Um, that's where we're supposed to be.
[05:42] Don't focus on the outcomes.
[05:43] Don't focus.
[05:44] Don't focus.
[05:44] Don't focus on the process.
[05:45] Don't focus on the process.
[05:45] Don't focus on the outcomes will take care of themselves.