Wisdom From My Mother
I'll bet that you heard it too
My mother always warned me to be careful who my friends were.
Her stated reason was that I would be judged by those who I chose to hang out with.
If I spent a lot of time with a delinquent, people would think I was a delinquent as well. That sort of thing. The same advice that I’m sure a great many of us received while we were growing up.
Don’t hang out with the bad guy, lest people believe that you are a bad guy too.
There’s a lot of truth to that. But it goes a step further.
If we hang out with a bad guy, we are apt to become a bad guy as well. Because by spending time with him, we slowly begin to normalize his aberrant behavior. We start seeing the bad things he does as somehow normal. Throw in a bit of peer pressure, and we can easily cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
We begin, slowly or quickly, to pick up habits from our bad guy friend.
This is pretty much the opposite of Freemasonry.
When we join a Lodge, we are looking to be able to spend time with good men. In doing so, those good men have a positive influence in our lives. We start seeing good behaviors as normal things that we would want to emulate.
We begin to pick up good habits from the good men surrounding us.
I don’t think I’m covering any new territory here. I imagine that millions and millions of mothers have said the same thing to their sons since time immemorial.
But, what about Lodges?
And the ‘habits’ of individual Lodges?
We don’t have Lodges out there doing bad things in the world. Not Regular Lodges anyway. Fraudsters calling themselves Masonic Lodges, sure, but not genuine Masonic Lodges.
Lodges are positive influences in their communities.
But some do have bad habits.
Undoubtedly most of us have encountered Lodges that just don’t do things the way that they should. They aren’t bad Lodges, but they’ve fallen into bad habits. They are doing things that they shouldn’t be doing, or not doing things that they should be doing. Often its a combination of both those things.
Well, we don’t want our Lodge to pick up those bad habits.
And we can, if we tie our Lodge too closely.
It can happen to a Lodge, just as it can happen to an individual.
Of course, the opposite is also true.
A Lodge can pick up good new habits by emulating and spending time with a great Lodge.
We just need to pick our friends with care.
In completely unrelated news, I had to delete a couple of comments from a fellow Mason today. His arguments were interesting, but the abusive way he made them was not. I warned him once, but he was unwilling to learn. Emeth’s Moderation Policy can be found here.
If you are looking for more, some of my recent favorites can be found over on my LinkTree.
The influence of friends and associates is not to be ignored.
During elementary, middle school, and the first year and a quarter of high school, my grades were always good. I enjoyed English, Math, and Science. As a matter of fact, I was doing so well that my high school asked me to switch to the advanced program. Diving deeper into the classics in English and focusing on excellence in writing. Advanced Algebra, and my favorite, Physics. Oh how I loved Physics. It's how things work in the world.
The high school I attended was an industrial high-school. My choice. In middle school, we took aptitude tests, designed to help us understand the best vocation for us. In my hometown, that equated to which high-school you should attend. College prep or industrial. My test results indicated I should attend college prep as I was best suited for, well, suits. That's right, white collar office jobs. BLECH!
I had spent a great part of my youth working on cars, dirt bikes, and snowmobiles. I had an aptitude for fixing things and, I had an uncle who was an electrician and he was doing quite well. I wanted to be an electrician. So I went to the industrial high school. My choice. There I took classes in automotive repair, drafting, machining, and electrical. Of course, there were the academic courses as mentioned above.
Many of my friends, who lived in the same neighborhood, were also attending that school. A couple of them, in the program that catered to the less intellectually astute. At any rate, many friends couldn't understand why I wanted to spend the time and effort on all the other advanced classes. My electrical courses would provide me with all the credits needed to graduate, with only one academic set of credits to fill the remaining space.
I succumbed to the friends and the easy path. I focused on English only and let my math and physics skills slip away. Man, do I regret that today. After high school, I attended a community college and studied heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC/R) and worked in that trade for over 15 years. I loved it.
Fast forward to my son, who is brighter than I am. He was very good at math, including algebra, pre-calc, calculus, and physics. He enjoyed them. He wanted to attend UW and go into Aerospace Engineering. The problem was, his friends influence. He would complete his homework, but then, not turn it in. He had no satisfactory reason as to why. As a result, his GPA was not where it should have been. So, no UW.
I offered an alternative. Just try an engineering program. Electrical Engineering would have been perfect for him. He decided to attend Bellevue College to get his Associate's degree and to reduce the cost for those early program requirements, and then attend WSU for an engineering degree.
We drove over to Moscow, Idaho so I could renew my CWP and made a stop at WSU on our way back. He had a high-school friend who was attending there. We found him in his class learning to draw 3D objects in a CAD program. My son's eyes were wide with excitement. He was impressed, and wanted to attend.
Then, something happened. His friend quit. Too hard, he said. He couldn't understand some of the concepts. So, my son squandered his chance to also attend. He didn't even complete his Associate's degree at Bellevue College.
Today, he will works at T-Mobile, and complains everyday about the job.
So, yes, who our friends are, play a role in who we turn out to be.
By the way, in 2001, I made a transition from the trades over to Information Technology. In 2005 I. moved from Atlantic Canada to the Seattle area to work for Microsoft. In the years since, I have completed a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Science, and an MBA.
Yes, I work in a white collar job. No suit, but white collar nonetheless.
Damned aptitude tests! :-)
The best life advice I received from my dad (RIP) was not spoken or written. He showed me the value of surrounding yourself with good people. Additionally, he showed me the value of being a good person to others. That advice as served me well.