practice Franklin's 13 virtues

Humility is my focus this week, and so far it’s gone well. I’ve always had a kind of conceited or self-congratulatory aspect to my personality. I usually bring it up humorously; I always assumed people found it charming (they laugh). But if I really want to be taken seriously, I think I’m going to have to get beyond that. And that’s only the external manifestations of it. I’ve got to start valuing other people’s opinions more as well, and realizing that I’m not always right. Without losing the ability to make my arguments, when I do think I’m right, however.

I knew from almost the day I started these that Humility was a weakness of mine. Sometimes it’s simply insecurity that makes me think every one else must be wrong. Sometimes I genuinely do think I’m smarter than everyone else. This exercise has made me realize that neither of these view are healthy (or correct).

Imitate Socrates. Imitate Jesus.

I noticed today that this is week 16 of 2009. I started on Jan 1, so I guess I missed a few weeks along the way. But overall, I’m very happy with this exercise, and I plan to continue it. People have already begun noticing changes in me, although they can’t put their fingers on what it is, just yet. I truly feel like I’m a better person than I was 13 (or 16) weeks ago.

I’m not really comfortable discussing this one in this forum. Suffice it to say, it’s neither my strongest nor my weakest discipline, and I will continue to focus on it as I do all the others.

During the week when I focused on this discipline, I discovered just how bad I am. I’ve always felt that I’m a pretty laid back guy, and I’ve even been told such. But things still get to me that shouldn’t. I get stressed, and things irritate me. This is something I violate more often than I ever realized. So much so that “Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable” has become like a mantra.

Never a problem for me. I shower daily and keep my clothes (or cloaths) pretty decent. I guess the habitation gets a little messy sometimes. This is also related to the some other goals I’ve been focussing on recently: virtue #3, order, namely keeping everything in its place, and clean sweep task #3, “My home is clean and tidy.” I’ve got reminders in my planner to keep an eye on how well I do picking up after myself for the next 3 weeks. I was good for a while, but I think I’m slipping.

Body, cloaths, and habitation. Two out of three’s not bad.

I’ve pondered this and pondered this, and I must admit, I still don’t fully understand this virtue. Moderation: avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. So the second part is clear, but it’s also pretty rare (I don’t get my feelings hurt that often.) Moderation seems like it should mean more than just don’t take things personally. Avoid extremes. In what sense? Does anyone have examples of being immoderate?

Anyway, I think I do this, to the best of my understanding. I’m fairly cautious in a lot of my decision making, so I guess that qualifies as a kind of moderation. Maybe part of it is just not going overboard in whatever it is that your doing? If you’re being orderly and frugal that shouldn’t be an issue.

Everytime I think I’m starting to understand it, I lose it again. Maybe I’m simply overcomplicating it. Maybe that’s immoderate as well.

I love to know if anyone else has any thoughts on this one.

I’ve always been an honest person. It’s the way I was raised. So these two disciplines come naturally to me. There are very few instances when I even have to remind myself to be sincere or just. And usually then, it’s because I made a self-preservative move out of fear, and (nearly) always try to correct it.

But, I’ve been lax in taking note of these during the past few weeks, so I may be worse at them than I’m letting on.

Industry, order, temperance, chastity, these are the primary disciplines which require work for me. Many of the others are a product of the values that were instilled in my growing up.

I’ve got to apologize to anyone actually reading this. It all sounds rather conceited, but I’m simply thinking out loud (so to speak..er..type). Or perhaps I’m simply trying to rationalize going through two weeks without paying enough attention to my habits in these areas. That in itself would be insincere.

They’re both things that need to be monitored in the future.

Ongoing project – I did fall down with these. So I am going to do what Franklin did – keep trying even if I fail sometimes. So The virtue of the week will feature along with reminding myself what they actually are.

I tried informally but this did not go to plan. So I am trying formally.

Need to fill my diary – I have an A5 page a day one!

Marking this as complete as I did practice them but not practise them (enough) if you understadn the distinction!

Ironically, I was too busy last week to really focus on my industry. I guess that means I passed. All I did was work, really. I’d like to do something to make my weekends more productive. Even though I worked 10 hours last weekend, I didn’t really get much else accomplished.

This one is easy. I’m generally frugal in everything I do (or I make my best effort to be). Perhaps I could look more carefully at my financial decisions that have already been made. I’m good about not spending on things I can’t justify, but maybe I need to look harder at things that I thought were unavoidable. For instance, I could save a bundle by switching to Geico.

Stupid lizard.

These were both a little difficult for me. It’s not that I’m disorganized, but I’m one of those people that always feels like he doesn’t have enough time for anything. This is preposterous, of course. I’ve the exact same number of hours in a day as Franklin himself had; the same as Einstein, and Edison, and Leonardo da Vinci. When I look back on the discipline of “Order” I get hung up on the second half of Franklin’s description: “Let each part of your business have its time.” The same problem comes up when I try to do what I resolve to do each day or week. The next time these two disciplines come up (I’m focusing on one a week), I think time management will be critical to their success.

Side note: I am really proud of how well I’ve done in staying focused on these disciplines. (I think of them as disciplines because I think the term virtue has religious/moral overtones that really aren’t applicable here.) I’m seven weeks in and I never miss more than a day at a time. It’s finally sinking in to the point where a certain discipline will flash through my head as soon as I’m about to violate it. It really narrows the focus of self-improvement tremendously.