Franklin's Success

I believe that it was a very good thing that Franklin implemented the thirteen virtues in his life, however, I think it is extremely difficult to determine if he by that, he was successful in becoming a better person. To be able to analyze that, I first need to define what it means to become a better person. I guess becoming a better person to me means bettering yourself not for the sake of others, but because you believe it is the right thing to do, even if it is hard. This entire topic seems to be a very controversial topic that people could have many different opinions on. I definitely do believe that Franklin was trying to become a better person by implementing the thirteen virtues in his life. Although, that claim could be argued by giving the counter-example that Franklin published his virtues and a book about himself, therefore he was not bettering himself for the sake of himself, he wanted the fame from others. Although that idea is a possibility, I feel like if Franklin really wanted to have a good impression on people, there would be a lot of other less time consuming ways to do it. Since he took so much time and effort in making the autobiography, and openly wrote about his views, without any care as to if people would agree with him or not, I believe that he wrote it for himself.

The thirteen virtues that Benjamin Franklin tried to implement into his life are temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility (Franklin). That is a huge list of virtues to try to implement into your life! I think it took a lot of Character from Franklin to even try to accomplish this whopping list of virtues. Implementing this virtues would take so much time and effort. It would also mean giving up things that he enjoyed, which is something that most people do not do. I think that Franklin must have been an extremely wise man to realize that these things were the keys to helping him become a better person, unlike all of the worldly things he could have been doing to become a better person. Although many would say that because Franklin failed and made mistakes while implementing these virtues into his life, he was not successful in becoming a better person, I would say quite the opposite (Franklin). I believe that even the act of trying to implement these virtues made Franklin a better person. Even though Franklin slipped up on a few of the virtues, at least he tried. I believe that trying something and failing at is is way more honorable than not even trying it in the first place. It takes character and it takes humility to try something new.

All of the virtues that Franklin chose to try to implement into his life were things that all took much character and restraint to implement. It is a very honorable thing to sacrifice your desires and things you want, for the sake of bettering yourself. That is not something very many people do, and I believe that doing so did indeed make Franklin a better person, even if the implementation of the virtues were not permanent.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.