Most of us realize that we have flaws, warts and weaknesses that really bug us. And if they bother us, the source of imperfection, imagine how our friends and family feel. It reminds me of the marital advice the late Ruth Bell Graham gave when asked about being married so long to evangelist Billy Graham.
“Separate bathrooms,” she replied.
Personal space aside, for every character wart there must be some Compound W.
This holiday season a lot of people will be making two similar lists, with slight differences. One will be for Christmas gifts that we don’t have to make any effort for. That’s the easy list.
The other list is for the New Year, a list of warts we want to change. These require a lot of effort. The usual suspects: Losing weight, quitting tobacco, exercising more – you know the list. If you’re thinking ahead toward genuine change in 2008, let one of our Founding Fathers help.
One of America’s greatest minds, inventors and diplomats, Benjamin Franklin, recognized his flaws and decided to do something about it. But instead of keeping his shortcomings private, Franklin wrote them down in his autobiography for everyone to know. I was thinking about writing mine down here, but decided to share Franklin’s instead.
He set about his “arduous project” with the intention to “live without committing any fault at any time.”
Lowering your cholesterol suddenly seems easy, right?
To no one’s surprise, he “found that I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.” Franklin desired to break his ‘contrary habits,’ establish good ones and then abide by a “steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.” This code of conduct consisted of 13 virtues that Franklin summarized from the devout reading of others’ pursuit, including the Bible, Aristotle, etc.
The virtues were numbered by Franklin in order:
temperance,
silence,
order,
resolution,
frugality,
industry,
sincerity,
justice,
moderation,
cleanliness,
tranquility,
chastity
and humility.
This was some list of resolutions!
Franklin decided that tackling all thirteen at once was harder than tackling Barry Sanders, so he proposed to work on one at a time. He kept a ‘little book’ with each virtue getting its own page with a weekly calendar. Blots were recorded on the days when Franklin fell short. His goal was to eventually see a ‘clean book’ without blemishes.
Franklin ‘thought it right and necessary to solicit’ God’s help since He is the ‘fountain of wisdom.’ He wrote a beautiful prayer and prayed it everyday. Armed with self-control and aided by divine help, what could go wrong?
Joel Osteen latest best-seller Become a Better You says that habits “are like gravity; they will always pull you toward them.” Well, Franklin succeeded and replaced some bad habits with good ones. He was pulled in the right direction and his list kept him on target.
But Franklin stumbled with the final virtue of humility. Pride was just too tough to conquer. “Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive,” he wrote poignantly. Even if he could completely overcome pride, Franklin said that “I should probably be proud of my humility.”
What should we do, then? Make a list of resolutions and possibly fail or not make any list at all, and succeed?
Reaching back to the thirteen virtues, I’ll let the Franklin give you some temperate, sincere, moderate advice.
He said that although “I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.”
So get out your paper and pen and make your list this New Year. You’ll be better for it.