Sophs #4 GREEN class Journal--Be Like Ben [Franklin, of course]
An older and wiser man writing his autobiography, Dr. Benjamin Franklin gave to the world his prescription for achieving "the bold and arduous task of moral perfection": list 13 virtues you wish to master, work on only one per week (like eradicating weeds from one flower bed at a time, he said), examine your day each evening to see if you had committed any actions contrary to that virtue (keep a record in a lined notebook), proceed to the next virtue the next week, and continue this process for a year (you'll be able to go through four cycles in 52 weeks). Sounds simple enough, right? About as easy and American as apple pie.
As a young man hiding behind the nom de plume of Poor Richard Saunders, Franklin's words of wisdom often took the shape of clever, pithily worded aphorisms like "God helps them that help themselves; a penny saved is a penny earned; fish and visitors smell in three days; an apple a day keeps the doctor away, etc."
Your journal assignment gives you some options.
You should (choose ONE of the three):
A. Tell me a personal or family tale that represents one of Franklin's virtues.
B. Tell me a personal or family tale that represents the theme of one of Franklin's aphorisms. Write that aphorism as part of your title. Check out the "talking Ben" by clicking here.
C. Relate in detail some orderly plan that you contrived in order to achieve some goal.
As Ben would have said, "Do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.
POST BEFORE SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16
posted by JTF @ 2:29 PM
28 comments
28 Comments:
Tranquility. "Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable." This is one of the famous virtues written by Benjamin Franklin. In this virtue, it explains how one's anger and negative behavior can disturb the others peace and mind. Always try to approach a situation calmly and peacefully rather than with anger and corruption or avoid any situation that can cause disturbance in any way. Being tranquil is also by making the right chioce and being positive. This virtue is very important in my family as well as respect. In any type of situation, my dad usually aviods it or, if he have to deal with it, then he will always come solve it peacefully and both sides win. My great grandfather ( who is actually 102 years old and still living) told me a tale when he visited us a few months ago. The tale goes; when my great grandfather was 5 years old, he lived in a small village in Beijing, China. Everyone in the village was very peaceful and tranquil. why? Well, in the village, if you were disturbing the peace then you would be kicked out of your own house and was forced to live in the woods. Back then, each chinese village would have their own local government and could make any rules they want. No parent was allowed to yell at their children, people couldn't shout, and everything went very peaceful. After 2 generations, my great grandfather returned to the village and he became the elderly of the village and gave lessons on the local temple every sunday. People from different villages always respected him not because of his authority, but of his peaceful ways. Everyone in my family looked up to him and learned from him the importance of tranquility.
I decided to write about the virtue tranquility. Ben Franklin wrote "be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable". It means that you should have aplomb when tough things come into your life and that you should approach different situations with calmness rather than with rashness and anger, and that through the hard times you should have poise and try to make the best decisions for yourself and the people around you. One story that I can remember is when my pop pop died 2 years ago. When my family and I went to his funeral it was the saddest time of that year. I could tell that the hearts of my family and the other friends that were there were broken. When I looked at my Grandma, who I thought would be the most upset, was calm. I could tell she was sad but she didn't want to get everyone else even sadder. I came to her and sat next to her and she put her arm around me and stopped my crying. In that moment I realized how tranquil she is. From there on I look up to her for her tranquility and calmness.
One of Franklin’s thirteen virtues was silence. I didn’t understand this one at first because I didn’t know how silence could make you a better person. But what Franklin meant by silence was “speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” Or make your words mean something. I think this virtue needs to be taught to most people our age. Conversations around school tend to be “trifling.” this consists of gossiping and talking about other people. Ben Franklin said “speech is silver but silence is gold.” Someone who speaks the truth and doesn’t babble on on meaningless topics seem to have more power in their words than the gossipers. This whole virtue reminds me of my mom. Just like Thumpers mom in Bambi, my mom would always tell us when we were little “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” At the time I probably didn’t understand why I had to be silent instead of talking about the mean girl at school. But now I understand it was to teach me and my siblings this important virtue. If you’re taught from a young age that something is wrong I think you’re more likely to stay true to that rule.
I choose C. My homework planer has an orderly list of what to do so I can get done all of it in a fast process. This way I have more time to program or to help around the house. I arrange it in when it was assigned, when it’s due, and what order I wish to complete it. But that is on rare occasions that I organize it by order of how I want to complete it. All of this helps me quickly finish my homework before 5:00
“Genius without education is like silver in the mine.” When I read this quote I was immediately reminded of my grandfather. When he was growing up he was a worker, he worked in the wheat fields like the characters in the story Of Mice and Men. My Grandfather worked very hard he ended up starting his own construction company. He was a very intelligent man but not by chance. He had the will to learn. Whenever he read something if there was a word he did not know the meaning of he would look it up in the dictionary. He learned because he could he had education but also did all could to get even more. A person could be the smartest person in the world however without education Ben had it right it is like a waste.
Ben Franklin describes order as “Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.” This virtue relates to my family because we always make time to see each other. Almost every Sunday we all go to church together. And we spend every holiday with each other. At the beginning of the year we decide whose house we will spend each holiday at. My family comes over to my house every year for Thanksgiving. At Christmas we do a secret Santa exchange and my grandmother keeps whom everyone has in order so people do not someone from their own house or someone they had the ear before. Being in my family has taught me that I need to manage my time well and to make sure that I always leave time for the most important people in my life.. my family.
Benjamin Franklin’s virtue of tranquility is very important to me because it tells you to give everything that is God-given to you to use in a positive manner. Franklin says “make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.” Ben Franklin definitely followed this virtue because when you look back at his life, you see he used all of his abilities to better human life for everyone. He was never frugal with his talents. A family story I have is one year at thanksgiving, my whole family piled into my grandma’s living room to feast. No I have this one cousin who’s basically great at everything and I asked her how she was so perfect at everything. She replied, “Matt, I’m not perfect, I just give everything I have into everything I do whether I like it or not.” In her response, she demonstrated two of Franklin’s virtues: humility and frugality. This attitude obviously worked out for her because she basically goes to college for free and is number one in her class. She is studying to be a marine biologist so she can further help out environmental life. I try to e frugal myself because I’ve realized life is a lot more fun if you go all out.
I made a schedule for myself when I was close to failing the third grade. My parents saw that I was making B’s and C’s on my report cards and they were far less than thrilled. So, my mother and I sat down and devised an ingenious schedule of my after school time. It divided my time into 2 different parts, the 3 hours of free time and the 4 hours of homework and study time. The free time was relatively unstructured, except the time set apart for dinner and the dishes, but the time set apart for homework was strictly divided. It was divided into five sections, one for each subject and one hour for miscellaneous study time. The sections were also divided into their difficulty, an hour for Spelling and one for math, and half an hour for phonics and reading. This schedule helped me obtain higher grades in my troubled subjects and maintain my grades in my good subjects. I continued to model this plan until the fifth grade when I felt that 4 hours a night was a insane amount of time for a child to be doing homework, so I trimmed it down to about an hour.
One of Benjamin Franklin’s thirteen virtues was frugality. The virtue itself tells us to make no expense but to do good to others or ourselves and to waste nothing. Frugality is a major part of my family life. In my household nothing will go to waste. Every scrap and last piece of anything left over is used for something bigger. If we have anything excessive to part with, it is given away for someone else who could use it. There is no one tale that could exemplify the lengths of frugality used in my home. Rather I can share a few exaggerated moments of when frugality was clear. Every Halloween costumes are made completely from scraps and findings from around the house. If there is anything needed that is not found the phone tree begins. Clearly a cousin, aunt, godmother, or friend could be of assistance before even a trip to Goodwill is necessary. When my family goes out to dinner we follow a few frugal steps as well. There are at least two of us who order off the kids menu. It is expected that water is our dinner beverage. Desert is never necessary until we get home to find something ourselves. Zip-Locks reused, house in darkness, and long carpools to save gas, frugality is a virtue quite present in our house.
Order. "Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time." This is a very important virtue in my family because without order a household couldn't be run. Each day my family has a set window of time that within it things need to be done. My mom likes things to be in their place and things to be done and accomplished in a reasonable amount of time. Each Wednesday we take my grandmother out to dinner and if one Wednesday doesn't work for us then we find another time to go, but it always gets done. Though keeping order might be hard to keep sometimes, it is important in one's life.
I picked choice A. One of my old family tales that represents Ben Franklin’s moral virtues was always said by my grandfather. The tale was if you eat to much, you have to stand up and it will all go to your feet and.. Then I would always interrupt and “Grandpa that’s silly!!” He would tell me to be quiet and let him finish! He never finished though, it’s kind of one of those things that you have to figure out on your own. I think this tale represents his first virtue, temperance and his 9th virtue, moderation. The tale that my grandfather use to tell shows these virtues because, you should never get to full, and this was a nice and funny way to tell the person who was gorging that.
Benjamin Franklin describes frugality by saying, "make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing". This is the fifth virtue on Franklin's list; therefore, I assume he looks upon it as an important part of daily life when acknowledging that his list was written in order of importance. My mom is a very frugal person. Anyone lacking this quality has it made up for them by my mother. She actually has a wallet; not for credit cards, but for coupons (it's stuffed to the brim). One day I went the the super market with her. The super market, as most of us know, hands out coupons like their candy. So once we had checked out and gotten all our groceries bagged and loaded into the cart my mom check the receipt (as usual). She then realized the man hadn't scanned one of our coupons which would have save us a mind boggling total of (drum roll please!) three dollars. So we had to unload our groceries, rescan them, and re-bag them. It was quite a process, not to mention the people behind us were becoming extremely irritated, but it made my mom happy. And I'm sure that if Benjamin Franklin had been watching, my mom would have made him very proud.
The value that I chose to write about is frugality. From a young age my parents have always taught me to spend my money wisely and to be thankful for what I have. In Franklin’s definition of frugality he says “waste nothing.” I get paid an allowance, but I only get paid if I work for it. I need to do my chores and pick up after myself in order to get paid. If I want something I have to buy it with my own money. By buying things with my own money it teaches me to spend my money wisely and not spend it on useless things. I keep some of my money to spend then I put the rest of it in my savings. I might need the money to buy something, but having money in the future is more important. If I don’t have something that someone else has I don’t get upset about it, I just tell myself to appreciate what I have and be thankful for the good health of my family. Money and material possessions aren’t everything, but you shouldn’t be wasteful.
Benjamin Franklin had a list of 13 virtues that he followed. One of them is cleanliness. Cleanliness is all about keeping one's self clean in a physical sense. One should bathe on a regular basis and always try to be clean. Most adults today take showers every morning or ever night and feel much better when they are clean. Most little children, on the other hand, absolutely hate taking a bath. They always complain and dawdle as much as possible to try to delay their bath. I have a little sister, and when she was younger she hated taking baths. We had to struggle to get her into the bathtub. One night, my mother told her that she could have her bathing suit on in the bathtub and she was so excited. You see, my sister loves the water and when she had her bathing suit on, she felt like she was in a swimming pool. For the next couple of months, my sister would not take a bath without her bathing suit on. It might not have been the best thing to do, but at least now she was getting clean. Cleanliness is a big part of a person's life. If one's body is clean, he or she may tend to feel better about themselves. When a person is dirty, they tend to be tired and grumpy, but when they take a shower, they feel refreshed and are ready for whatever the day will bring. This is why cleanliness is an important virtue.
The most important virtue of Ben Franklin’s I think is silence. I probably feel this way because it’s the virtue I need to practice most. I have always been rather out going and haven’t had the chance to listen as much as I should. I feel that Ben Franklin must have been the same way. Ben Franklin probably was talkative because of all the people he knew and the social status he had. He had a sense of humor and a self confidence which must have made him more talkative, which is why silence was one of his thirteen virtues.
Ben also has several sayings on practicing silence. Some are “He who speaks much, is much mistaken”. And “Silence is not always a Sign of Wisdom, but Babbling is ever a folly.” And there are many more quotes from other authors. Silence isn’t practiced by just Ben Franklin but by all successful people. Silence always makes a statement and gives those who practice it the opportunity to listen, which is the opportunity to become wise.
The virtue I choose to write about is Order. Ben Franklin described Order as "Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have it's time". I can break down this virtue Order in many different ways. In my household every room has to be clean before you leave the house, and everything in the house has a place for where it should be. Also my mom likes to have things done by certain times so that when she's done one task she's able to move on to the next task or outing and do what she needs to do. Now my family is very spread out and we always come together for the holidays, birthdays, and special events. My grandmother would use the virtue Order because she'll let everyone know what needs to be done or for events so everyone can have a good time. In my family Order is important and time should always be available for your family and friends.
The virtue I choose to write about is Order. Ben Franklin described Order as "Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have it's time". I can break down this virtue Order in many different ways. In my household every room has to be clean before you leave the house, and everything in the house has a place for where it should be. Also my mom likes to have things done by certain times so that when she's done one task she's able to move on to the next task or outing and do what she needs to do. Now my family is very spread out and we always come together for the holidays, birthdays, and special events. My grandmother would use the virtue Order because she'll let everyone know what needs to be done or for events so everyone can have a good time. In my family Order is important and time should always be available for your family and friends.
Ben Franklin's fifth virtue: FRUGALITY- Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself. My dad has always been a penny pincher, or a tightwad, as some would call it. My dad always told me to watch how I spent my money. He always told me to save my money and only spend it on something I really wanted or cared about. Over the summer he made me get a job so I could start saving for college and a car. I have to pay for college by myself so learning about saving and prioritizing things I want has made me value and understand the aspect of frugality. My father also followed Ben Franklin’s idea of “a penny saved is a penny earned” this saying also follows along the virtue of frugality. It tells you if you don’t waste things and if you keep them they can become of greater value to you. My dad is also somewhat of a packrat, and that has rubbed off on me too. But I’ve learned that if you keep things, then sometimes they can become of greater value, such as becoming an antique or just gain sentimental value. He told me never to waste anything because everything has a value to it and you shouldn’t waste it.
“Necessity never made a good bargain” I hold this aphorism to be true because when you really think about it, if you really want something you will pay a much more unreasonable price then what the item is worth. Someone who really desires to have a new computer would pay more for it then someone who is contempt with the computer they already have or lack of a computer. This aphorism reminded me of the time when my mother, desperate as she was, to find a new guitar for my grandfather spend $100 more then the set price that the man was selling it for because someone else was willing to buy that guitar before my mother had and, since it was a “Necessity” to my mother to get it, she did not bargain she did quite the opposite and raised the price so that she could have the guitar instead of the man who originally wanted to buy it.
A. Tell me a personal or family tale that represents one of Franklin's virtues.
One of Franklin's virtues that I respect the most is silence. "Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation". I took his understanding of silence as, don't brag about all the great things that you have done and to not keep the conversation all about you. After one of soccer games (one of the best we've ever played) we won. It was an even matched game and it was against one of our rival teams that we always lose to. Being that it was a local team, both my team and our opposing team, all knew each other. We all went out to dinner together and talked about everything good from both teams, and put aside all of our differences and nobody bragged at all about who won or who played better.
C)When I transfered from Caravel I realized how none of the football coaches knew how good I was when I saw my name was last on the depth chart. I was kind of upset by this so I thought of a plan about how to get better and make my way up the depth chart. My goal was to start the first JV game and after the first week of practice I got to 2nd string JV. I was proud of my progress but not satisfied yet. I came into every practice trying to get better and trying to get noticed. My efforts eventually paid off and I reached my goal by starting the first JV game against Milford.
One of Ben Franklin's 13 virtues that stands out to me is industry. I think my parents exemplify this virtue. For as long as I could remember, my parents have been extremely hard working. My dad worked so much during the day plus overtime so that my mom could take 13 years off work to take care of me and my sisters. My dad worked so hard to support the family, and he still does today. If work calls him during the night, he will take the shift. Also, my mom works just about every day of the week. She is very dedicated to doing a good job at what she does. Often she works all day on the weekends. I think my parents are a good example of this virtue. They are dedicated to their work to provide a better life for me and my siters.
“A penny saved is a penny earned”. This aphorism is one that my Dad lives by, but not many others in our family. He is always trying to save money, knowing that the more he saves better off we will be. My Mom, on the other hand, likes to spend money, so this makes for a very interesting family dynamic. Thankfully, despite their different approaches to money, they get along well. Unfortunately our society does not pay attention to this aphorism. The country’s latest recession is in large part due to people spending more money than they had; which goes against Ben’s teachings. Ben was right with his, “a penny saved is a penny earned” aphorism.
“A penny saved is a penny earned.” This aphorism means that little by little you when you are saving money, you are saving it. The more you save you more your going to get, and it will be worth more. You can save all the pennies to make a greater fortune. Money that you save is a lot more valuable than the money that you spend right away and You do not want to spend money when you don’t need to or to buy things that are not a necessity. This relates to my life because whenever I earn money, I do not spend it and I put it away in a safe place to save. By not spending any of that money I am earning it because I work hard for that money and not use it. My parents respect me for doing that because I don’t go out doing pointless things so when I do go out to do something that I really want to do or have to, my parents give me money so I don’t have to spend my own. That makes a penny earned because I keep my own money. I have always been like this because my parents brought me up that way and my brother and sister are both like that to.
A. One of Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues is silence. He says silence is to speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. I have used this virtue many times throughout my life. I believe this value relates to me personally because I try to bite my tongue and speak only what may benefit others. I try not to speak in a trifling tone and when I speak, I try not to cause trouble. I feel that what Franklin was trying to say in this virtue is that if you don’t have something good to say, don’t say it at all. I feel that this relates to me because I am usually really good about keeping bad remarks about someone or something inside of me instead of bringing them out in the open and causing trouble. By avoiding trifling conversation, we are benefiting others because sometimes the way we speak, may hurt other people and not benefit them in any way. I feel that we should speak smartly and kindly and when there is something bothering us, we should speak to the person in a kind matter without being rude to them. A personal experience for me would be when someone says something rude to me or something I don’t like to hear, I bite back my tongue because I know that I am mature and don’t need to act childish. Silence is golden and if you are strong enough to hold back and not say things that may benefit others then you hold a special skill.
I think silence is a key virtue to abide by. Franklin says, “speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” Many kids today speak without thinking. They don’t think about how their words could affect someone’s feelings or life. People have big mouths and tend to spread things just because they want something to talk about or someone to talk about. “Speech is silver, but silence is golden.” If everyone were to follow that quote then I think the world would be a much better and happier place. My parents always taught me not to talk about those who wouldn’t want to be spoken of. This means don’t spread rumors or talk about stupid stuff that doesn’t affect you or have anything to do with you. We should just mind our own business and live our lives.
My choice is C.
My plan is to keep in shape. My plan begins with eating well each and every day. The next step in my plan is exercise, I try to ride my bike or run around the block a few times. Exercising is pretty easy for me because I have access to a gym at the firehouse, and also I have to exercise at fires and car accidents that I go to. The 3rd step in my plan is sleep, it is very important to get enough sleep so your body can function properly. I try to go to bed early on school nights, and also at a reasonable time on weekends. This is the step in my plan that is giving me the most problem because I go to fire calls at all hours on weekends and as much as possible during the week. A perfect example of this is Friday night when I was at a fire from 7:30pm to 4:00am, almost 8 hours. The final step in my plan is keeping my stress level to a minimum, I try to keep my stress levels low and try to just let most things go. I feel that if you are always stressed and up tight you will not be able to stay in shape because of the constant ups and downs caused by stress. That was my plan to stay in shape, hopefully it works!
Orderly plans are often used by me and others to achieve goals that are easy or hard to reach. It doesn’t really matter what type of goal you need to reach as long as you have one. One of my goals was to do better on homework and school grades. I began by figuring out why I wasn’t getting the best grades I could. Once I figured out I didn’t have a good work ethic. When I tried to get one things became much easier and my grades improved. Next I started doing all my homework and handing it in on time and eventually began to work harder and learn more. Then I began to study hard everyday for the subjects I was having trouble in and soon those grades showed improvement and I was learning more than ever. I started paying more attention in class and actually trying to understand what was being taught and grew a larger understanding of my work. My note taking skills improved and I began to take notes in every class whenever it was necessary. I have since relapsed into my previous behavior and am now doing only average, I know I can do better if I care about my school work and try my best.
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