Rung Two: Do you need to work a plan to achieve an objective?
"The achievement of one's objectives requires a good plan and consistent effort," argues George L. Rogers in Benjamin Franklin's name. Want to argue with him?
“Franklin’s blueprint, as it were, for living a useful and happy life was designed around the goal of achieving ‘moral perfection.’ … He discovered, however, that self-improvement goals of this kind are more easily set than achieved.”
—George L. Rogers
I don’t think there’s any way around it. If you want something, if you want to work for something, if you want something to be different—heck, even if the goal is to loosen up and accept things as they are—then even no-effort (like Zen Buddhists might pitch) means effort.1 Not doing is still doing. Accepting, not resisting, is still action. I am fresh off the reading of another fantastic Cheri Huber book2 that pitched acceptance, not resistance. And, of course, that sounds an awful lot like, say, giving up and just doing whatever.
That ain’t Franklin’s bag. Benjamin Franklin was a humorous, ambitious, intelligent, hard-working, people-studying, self-improving man. That’s his reputation. Is that truly at odds with accepting? Are we resisting ourselves and the world—are we pushing back against what is and causing more problems—if we try to “be better”? Franklin says, in multiple places, his plan is for “moral perfection.” Well, la-dee-da, Mr. Franklin! Snooty goal, right?
Franklin’s thought-collecting editor, George L. Rogers, is going to be doing Franklin’s bidding—a full-court press for the virtuous life and trying to better yourself every day.3
Franklin knew he wanted to be better. He settled on his goal, to live a virtuous life, and he picked some virtues. Then he set himself a daily focus on one of the virtues, a daily review at the end of the day to check his progress, and a handy chart to focus on one virtue a week. If he got through a week without violating the virtue, he would think he was good enough and move on to the next one. Eventually, he aimed for a chart free of missteps.4
That is one among many ways to visualize and follow a plan and keep pushing, day after day, to make it happen. And virtuous living is, of course, the plan of a lifetime. He admits to a friend in a letter that this list of virtues and daily focus was dreamed up as a young man, followed some years, abandoned some other years when he was doing well and travel or work got in the way. But he’s convinced it helped.
His virtues were:
TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
His daily habit of focus sounds a lot like any of thousands of other ways people use habits, routines and intentional awareness to guide them to be, either, a better them or the them they truly yearn to be or the them they really are behind the poor choices, conditioned reactions, and thoughtless behavior.
Rung One—
The achievement of one’s objectives requires a good plan and consistent effort
Questions to Maybe Ask During Rung Two
What virtues of Franklin’s sound good for you?
What virtues of Franklin’s rub you the wrong way?
What virtues would you add?
Exercise to Try During Rung Two
“I made a little book”: That’s what Benjamin Franklin says. So, let’s say there’s only one exercise to try or contemplate trying. I did (see the photo above). I bought a pocket-sized Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie-the-Pooh-themed passport journal with 24 pages. I used a ruler to draw horizontal lines on which to write the names of Franklin’s virtues on the left. Then I drew horizontal lines to mark the days, Sunday to Saturday. On my first day, yesterday, at the end of the day, I added little dots to mark failures I remembered of that virtue that day. Following Franklin, I resolved to focus extra hard on the one virtue worked on that week. I followed his advice to reflect on and mark, but not worry overmuch, about the failures of the others: “[I left] the other virtues to their ordinary chance … ” Franklin sought a future joy in the endeavor: “ … I should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks’ daily examination.” If you are serious about bettering yourself, on Franklin’s trajectory, on your own trajectory, on goals you hold close to your heart that involve daily repetition and practice … make your book. Digitally. In a notebook. Pins on a board. Stones in a bowl. Whatever. Pick your daily habits. Mark them. If you don’t want to, if you find this idea tedious, ask yourself why you’re resisting. It’s okay to resist. Accept your resistance, like the Zen Buddhists! Sit with your resistance. But … have you really tried it? And might it work? Dunno. You do you.
My Plan for Rung Two
Isn’t it obvious? Each day, until I can mark an entire week without failing Temperance, eating too much (trouble) or drinking too much (no trouble at all), I’ll keep on keeping on, tracking all the virtues, but keeping my eye on the first one. Then I’ll move to the next one and see if I can hold two balls in the air, Temperance and Silence. Then … and then … and then …
What Did I Miss?
The rubber has met the road, friends. In just the second of 12 rungs, Franklin has set out an eminently do-able activity that easily measures progress over hours, days, weeks, months and years. Will you heed the call? Will you join my junto of self-improvement? Will you be accountable with me about starting the work to shift yourself, to accept yourself, to strive yourself … ?
Either way, be well.
“I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined;
but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.”
—Benjamin Franklin
Zen Buddhists might say that meditation is not productive. It’s the opposite of productive. It just is. It’s the opposite of goals and effort. Fine. But it’s still doing something, and it’s a plan, and it takes effort. Even if the effort is not doing something else and abandoning plans. Here’s how Domyo Burk sets the stage: “In the case of meditation, you create conducive circumstances by setting aside a period of time for not doing anything productive, entertaining, or pleasurable. You settle the body into stillness or into a very simple, repetitive physical movement.” Even no effort is effort. Maybe better, different, than regular ego-driven effort, but still effort. I mean, until you really do get a sense of where your ego ends and the awareness of ego, something bigger than you, begins—where the finite meets the infinite, as Leo Tolstoy might say. Read more here.