A Mason's Work

[00:00] do or don't do there is no try it's one of the coolest lines in empire strikes back uh by yoda
[00:07] of all people that tiny green jedi master um who has actually been uh an embarrassingly large
[00:16] source of wisdom in my everyday life um yoda says uh do or don't do there is no try and when i was
[00:24] a young man i heard that and focused essentially on what that sounded like was just the outcomes
[00:31] matter it doesn't matter how hard you try you do it or you don't um and as i've aged uh
[00:39] sometimes like vinegar sometimes like wine um i have learned in a lot of cases that that
[00:47] uh that statement is not uh outcomes focused actually it's mindset focused so what do i mean
[00:57] but when you um when you go at a behavior with a mindset of um the hedge that so luke skywalker's
[01:08] response uh the reason that this whole sort of sentiment came up is uh yoda is you know takes
[01:15] luke to the swamp and he needs to get his ship out um and looks like you know you know i don't
[01:21] know that i could do that and yoda's like look at me i'm tidy i can do all sorts of stuff uh paraphrase
[01:29] it's going to be its own separate youtube channel for star wars later um so when you start looking at
[01:33] um what the response here it's um you know yoda's like no dude this is not how that works that's not
[01:40] how any of this works it's it is all about understanding the mindset when luke says he's
[01:47] going to try he is essentially hedging his bets saying things like i don't think uh i can do this
[01:56] but we'll see um and and yoda's subtle response here is no that's not how how your mind has to work in
[02:07] this process how your mind has to work in this process is you have to commit 100 you're either
[02:13] here to do this or you're not yoda is um disappointed in the outcomes visually in the movie and that's
[02:20] that's all fine and good right that's just sort of movie trope in some cases the idea here though is
[02:27] that by uh by having that mental hedge in your process or in the way you execute you are essentially
[02:36] allowing for um a sub optimal effort when you say you're going to try a lot of people say that in
[02:47] the context of like yeah we'll give it a shot see what happens um when uh when you're really supposed
[02:53] to be i'm going to give this a hundred percent uh that's what this what this kind of means or
[03:03] you know where my current development has led me to understand this quote from not just the uh you
[03:12] know get your ship out of the ocean or that of the swamp kind of thing it's you know you're going to
[03:17] live in this way you're going to invest a hundred percent of your sort of mind and emotional energy
[03:22] and in fact there's a deeper wisdom here that connects to a lot of other wisdom traditions
[03:28] so um in uh uh in like the buddhist traditions which is kind of a place where i've spent a lot
[03:35] of time doing homework um you'll find that uh the desire to become enlightened is actually what's
[03:43] keeping you from being enlightened it is that uh it is the want or the outcomes uh that is preventing
[03:51] you from having that experience because by wanting a thing you are projecting the outcome into the
[03:57] future you are making it so that uh it's not right now right and enlightenment is always a present
[04:03] moment experience uh same thing's true with you know the trying or the not trying it's all about um
[04:10] essentially putting this space between what you're doing and what you want that is a sort of a cognitive
[04:18] shim or a an emotional hedge against being right here right now and fully enmeshed in the
[04:27] moment uh i know there's some subtlety this and for a lot of folks that uh are are maybe hearing
[04:33] this kind of stuff for the first time it sounds like fortune cookie stuff this sounds crazy talk
[04:39] but uh there is a lot of truth to this it is very often that our desires for a thing prevent us from
[04:51] taking action to achieve that uh how many of you have said one day when i'm rich i'll be able to do this
[04:58] or that the other thing that that is a perfect example of this sort of cognitive hedge that makes rich
[05:07] happen someday in the future with an ambiguous set of tasks or steps to get there take those steps now
[05:14] you're rich right now you have a certain amount of mental emotional resilience some some kind of
[05:22] wealth some kind of asset available to you right now what is that asset and can you use that to
[05:30] create this ideal future state that you're projecting this future projection stuff uh this
[05:36] this one day i'll figure it out or one day i'll be this or one day i'll be that is uh essentially the
[05:41] enemy of the present moment in a lot of ways it allows you to to wish instead of act uh and that's
[05:49] really at the end of the day what yoda was getting to when he said do or don't do there is no trump