Carpe Iter Tuum - Seize Your Journey!

Carpe iter tuum! You may more easily recognize this in English: “Seize your journey”! I am a strong advocate of one taking charge of their own journey or destiny and plowing ahead, clearing their path as they go. What prompts me to bring my keyboard to bear on this topic? The answer is simple, reading, listening, and hearing what is being discussed and pondered among some of our brethren.

I frequently see and hear brothers seeking advice and guidance on their next masonic “step”, what masonic orders to join, where to devote their energies and labors. I am all-in on seeking opinions and experiences of brethren who have advanced their own journeys and who are pursuing their own masonic interests. Our brothers are out there, living the masonic life and learning about masonry, other orders, history, and ritual. They are our best resources for information on which we can make our own decisions on what’s next and where our paths should go.

I would caution a brother however about the potential for one to, in essence, surrender their journey or control over their journey to others based on the experiences and opinions of the more experienced brothers. Brethren, please, I implore you, seek out the advice of others, but please make your final decisions based on your own interests and desires! Once you change your mind on a decision about your next step based on what a brother advises, or when you accept what you believe is the common opinion held by what you presume is the majority, you have surrendered that decision to that brother or group and, therefore, you have surrendered control over that part of your journey to others.

I cannot over emphasize the importance of what I am about to say; opinions and experiences of brothers is crucial in helping a mason make well-informed decisions about their masonic futures, but, one should never make a decision based on things he might hear or read on social media or, worse, based on beliefs he might consider to be widely held. An example I recently discovered had a brother pondering a masonic organization that he was particularly interested in and drawn to, but he was hesitating because he believed that the popular opinion of many brothers was that it was not a good idea. This brother turned to social media for input and thoughts of not only brothers, but non-brothers and, perhaps those who populate masonic forums but may not have the best interest of masonry in mind. I got the sense this brother might actually decide against joining the organization based on feedback from potentially hundreds of “users” he has never met. This to me is the classic example of surrendering your journey to others.

The trick my brothers, is to gather your information from those whom you know and trust, evaluate their advice and opinions and weight that information against your own interests and then make your own decision based on what they have told you and what you know to be best for you.

For new master masons this is a tricky endeavor. There will be many opinions and experiences from many brothers and the new mason will have little or no frame of reference. But this is also an opportunity for a new brother to examine his own expectations and hopes for his masonic future and acknowledge them. This can help him learn and improve his ability to identify his natural instincts, trust them, and act on them. This will be a lifelong lesson reinforced frequently throughout his life and will serve his many masonic and non-masonic endeavors. Well-informed decision making is a critical life skill required by a man to be successful, but it could remain dormant in a man who makes a lifelong habit of surrendering his decisions to others or to popular opinions.

Brethren, it is your journey! Good brothers will come and go and each will bring their own experiences and advice – but those are based on their own journey! Social media users may or may not actually be masons, so what is their advice actually worth? None of these good brothers or social media users is walking your path or pursuing your interests and goals, so why would you, why would we surrender our decisions to them? My brother, carpe iter tuum! Seize YOUR journey!

S&F

Bro. Bill