23d • General discussion
Benjamin Franklin + Virtues
One fascinating fact about Benjamin Franklin is that he spent decades deliberately trying to engineer his own character.
When Franklin was in his twenties, he created a personal system built around 13 virtues that he believed would help him become a better man. They included temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Rather than simply writing these down as ideals, Franklin turned them into a behavioral tracking system.
He created a small book containing a chart with the seven days of the week across the top and his 13 virtues down the side. Each day, he would examine his behavior and place a mark beside a virtue whenever he believed he had violated it. His objective was to eventually move through the week without accumulating marks.
What makes the system particularly interesting is that Franklin did not attempt to perfect all 13 virtues simultaneously. He concentrated primarily on one virtue at a time while continuing to monitor the others. He would spend a week giving special attention to the first virtue, then move to the next, eventually completing a full cycle through all 13. He intended to repeat the cycle several times throughout the year.
Franklin later admitted that the system did not make him morally perfect. In fact, he wrote that he was surprised by how many faults he discovered in himself once he began paying close attention to his behavior. He also struggled particularly with his virtue of “Order,” because the unpredictable nature of his business and daily responsibilities made rigid scheduling difficult.
Yet Franklin considered the experiment enormously valuable. He believed that even though he never achieved the perfection he originally sought, the attempt itself made him a better and happier man.
There is something remarkably modern about a man born in 1706 essentially creating his own habit tracker.
Nearly three centuries before smartphones, streak counters, productivity applications, and 90-day challenges, Benjamin Franklin had already discovered a principle we continue rediscovering today: deciding who you want to become is only the beginning. You then have to identify the behaviors associated with that person, perform them repeatedly, measure whether you actually performed them, and continue long enough for those behaviors to begin shaping your character. Franklin was not simply tracking what he accomplished. He was tracking who he was becoming.
The young man who once sat down with a notebook and began putting marks beside his own failures would eventually help found a nation, help secure the alliance that helped win its independence, and become one of the most recognized scientists and inventors of his time.
Benjamin Franklin accomplished extraordinary things, but long before the world knew his accomplishments, he was quietly working on the habits and character of the man who would eventually accomplish them.
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Benjamin Franklin + Virtues
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