“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1705, the eighth of his parent’s ten children. Being one of the youngest in the household Ben had to learn important skills on how to get along with others – developing a quick wit that he used to help him defuse confrontations throughout his life.

Apprenticed by his father to his 21 year old brother for a term of 9 years when he was only 12, Ben learned the trade quickly, eventually surpassing the skills of his older brother. To escape from his indentured servitude contract Franklin ran away to Philadelphia when he was only 17 years old.

In Philadelphia Franklin was able to find steady work at a Printing shop. His work ethic earned the admiration of the Provincial Governor who encouraged him to start his own shop – even shipping him off to Britain with capital so he could purchase his own Printing equipment.

At the tender age of 20, Franklin sailed back to America using the 2 month sailing time as an opportunity to examine his life up until that point and formulating a plan of conduct to follow for the remainder of his life.

In his journal written during that voyage he chided himself for the irregularity of his past actions and vowed to prevent his life from becoming wasted on a confused variety of different scenes.

With that in mind he set about making certain resolutions to himself and putting in place a plan of action so that henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature. Franklin further identified in his journal, the thirteen virtues that he felt, when practiced, would reinforce those resolutions.

Benjamin Franklin’s Resolutions

1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal until such a time as I have paid off what I owe.
2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance, to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim for sincerity in every word and action.
3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish projects of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.
4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the fault I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody.

Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation
2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversation
3. Order: Let all things have their place; let each part of your business have it’s time
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; waste nothing
6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit, think innocently and justly
8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the things that are your duty
9. Moderation: Avoid extremes, avoid resenting injuries as much as you think they deserve
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation
11. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable
12. Chastity: Rarely practice sexual indulgence except for health or offspring; never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin’s original list of virtues stopped at 12, but he added the 13th item after one of his Quaker friends mentioned to him that his neighbors thought he exhibited too much pride.

With those resolutions and virtues in hand, Franklin began a program to integrate them into his daily life. He devised a chart based on a thirteen week rotation where each week he focused on mastering one of the virtues. He kept a scorecard at the end of each day to keep track of his success at making the virtues a habit.

Franklin eventually abandoned the exercise when he discovered that virtues are not so simply acquired. Still, he was proud of his plan of personal conduct and for making it the basis for his life’s conduct. In later years he judged that the mere attempt had made him a better and happier man than he would have been otherwise.

While reading about Franklin’s uncommon life in the book The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by the historian H.W. Brands, I was astonished at the seriousness and resolution of mind exhibited by the 20 year old Ben Franklin.

Most 20 year old men and woman today are not busy formulating a plan of action for the conduct of their life or thinking about which virtues they ought to be practicing in order to achieve success in life.

I would guess that most 20 year old Americans today are more busy playing video games, binge watching television shows, obsessing over their social media presence or searching for ways to acquire the materialistic trappings of success without having to work too hard for them.

I know that at that age, I was thinking more about selfish pursuits like fraternity parties, girls and sports than I was thinking about the irregularity of my actions or my failure to live like a rational creature.

What is even more astonishing than Franklin’s display of maturity and seriousness of mind at such a young age is the incredible accomplishments he achieved throughout his life by following the principles behind those early resolutions and by being true to his virtues.

Courtesy of the Franklin Institute

One glance at the list of Benjamin Franklin’s accomplishments will make you wonder how it is possible for a single person to achieve so much, in so many different fields, in the short span of one human lifetime.

Benjamin Franklin’s Accomplishments

• Established the leading Printer business in the Colony of Pennsylvania eventually expanding his business to a second shop in South Carolina. Being the most successful printer in the Colonies he was essentially the Google of his day – owning a monopoly on the thoughts and opinions that got disseminated every day.
• Published the Philadelphia Gazette which became the most popular newspaper in the Province. He wrote most of the Opinion pieces using an alias and published the 1st political cartoon.
• Advocated for paper currency and became the Colony’s approved currency printer – designing a pattern that could not be counterfeited.
• Created Poor Richard’s Almanac – a popular yearly publication that charted the phases of the moon, weather, timing of the tides, farming information, calendar events, recipes, cures, and psychological advice. Franklin’s alter ego, Poor Richard, dispensed pearls of wisdom throughout the Almanac that quickly became staples of the American lexicon. Phrases like “Great talkers, Little doers“, “Hunger never saw bad bread“, “If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend“, “There are no gains without pains” and “If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you“.
• Recruited a club of inquirers considered to have the best minds in the city and called them the “Junto”. The club met weekly to discuss moral, political, philosophical, literary and scientific matters. Franklin encouraged the club to focus on topics which would contribute most to the benefit of mankind and expanded on this concept when he became a founding member of the American Philosophical Society.
• Founded the country’s first Public Library at age 27.
• Following his philosophy that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure“, he formed a volunteer collection of active men who were committed to combating fires. This group became the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer firefighters in America. To spare homeowners from the financial ruin of a fire he proposed the idea of Fire Insurance policies.
• Writing that “you can undertake nothing that will be more advantageous to your children, nor more acceptable to our country“, Franklin offered a plan to educate the children of Philadelphia free from the extraordinary expense and hazard of sending them away to private school. In effect, he became the first organizer of public schools as well as a primary founder of the University of Pennsylvania
• Invented an improved wood stove that kept houses significantly warmer and less sooty while requiring less than a quarter of the firewood of existing fireplaces. The Franklin stove quickly spread throughout the world because Franklin declined to patent it, letting anyone borrow its design and improve on it. He reasoned that he had profited from other people’s inventions, why should not others benefit from his.
• Appointed postmaster of Philadelphia by the British Crown Post in 1737, a post he held for 16 years. His effective measures led to the first profits for the colonial post office. In 1775, when the Second Continental Congress established the United States Post Office, Franklin was made the first Postmaster General due to his experience in the field.
• He was at the forefront in the field of the early studies of electricity. He performed experiments and wrote papers that described how electricity behaved and he invented an electric battery and a primitive electric motor. His work was honored by the world engineering societies and he was given the title of Doctor.
• Proved that lightning was associated with electricity. Franklin helped tame lightning by inventing the lightning rod which protected countless buildings from being struck and possibly destroyed by fire.
• The first to theorize that chronic exposure to lead was toxic. He suggested replacing lead coils used in distilleries with copper coils instead.
• Franklin suffered from poor eyesight as he aged which led him to invent bifocals, dual lens eyeglasses with the upper lens used for distance and the lower lens for reading.
• He was an early and ardent advocate of the health benefits of vigorous exercise and one of the first to recognize that Colds are not caused from being exposed to cold temperatures but rather by being exposed to one another’s respiration.
• Performed experiments underlying the principle of refrigeration. Noticing how evaporation of liquid can absorb heat, he theorized this was how trees cooled themselves and mitigated the effects of summer temperatures.
• Conjectured that earth’s core was fluid in nature and that the mountains and land masses were floating upon this fluid.
• Performed experiments during his many sailing trips, discovering that the Gulf stream was actually a river of warm water flowing over the colder body of the ocean.
• Recommended the building of double-hulled ships to reduce the chance of vessels sinking when they were in an accident.
• Presciently hit on a fundamental law of nature, the conservation of mass-energy, writing that we cannot destroy the energy confined in a piece of wood that is burned in a fire – we can only separate it from that which confines it and so set it at liberty.
• Invented a Rolling Press that could copy a letter in under two minutes.
• Invented swim fins, the musical instrument glass armonica, a flexible urinary catheter, his own version of the odometer, and the long arm – which he used to reach books in high shelves of his library.
• Even though he kept two slaves, Franklin viewed the institution of slavery as incompatible with justice and humanity. He became one of the first distinguished men in the country calling for the abolition of slavery – writing that the introduction of slaves could only diminish a nation.
• Franklin was an early British Loyalist and wanted America to avoid war with its Mother country, but he gradually came to believe in the cause of American Independence writing that “We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature” .
• He served prominent Ambassadorial posts in Britain and France, representing the face of America to the European Continent throughout his career.
• During the American Revolution, Franklin played a pivotal role in convincing the French government to join the American cause and persuading them to provide crucial loans and naval assistance – which George Washington skillfully used to defeat the British.
• Contributed to and signed all the founding documents of the United States; including the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution.
• At his death, he established the Franklin fund, a trust to benefit the two cities he loved, Boston and Philadelphia. The fund is still solvent today and continues to contribute to worthy causes.

Most people would consider their life successful if they had achieved just one of Benjamin Franklin’s long list of accomplishments. It is hard to think of any other American in the history of the country who has had comparable ambition and talent to pursue so many interests.

Benjamin Franklin was one who came as close as any to realizing the full potential of the human spirit, a one-of-a kind talent who had a significant and profound influence in the early development of his nation.

H.W Brand labels Franklin The First American because he believes that Franklin was the most important American who ever lived because more than any other person, he was responsible for defining the American way of life and he considers Franklin’s combined contributions to his country over the course of his lifetime greater than any other American citizen.

While reading about the life of Benjamin Franklin, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of his accomplishments had their roots in that original Plan of Conduct he devised at the tender age of 20. It seems like his prolific productivity and success would not have been possible unless he remained true to those early resolutions and virtues throughout his life.

It makes me wonder how much more productive I could have been with my life if I had diligently followed a similar plan of conduct. What good has remained undone in the world because, unlike Franklin, I have not spent my life in always being employed in something useful?

It is of some solace to me that many of Franklin’s most important contributions came in his old age. It gives me hope, as I am about to embark on my seventh decade of life, that it is still not too late for me to live more deliberately and strive with my remaining time to be someone who, as Franklin put it – either writes something worth reading or does something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin died April 17, 1790; three months after his eighty-fourth birthday. It was estimated that half the population of Philadelphia turned out to mourn at his funeral. Messages of sympathy and respect poured in from dignitaries around the world honoring Franklin because he sought knowledge not just for his own sake but for all of humanity’s.

It seems fitting to close this blog with the epitaph that Benjamin Franklin drafted for his tombstone when he was only 22 years old. Wherever his Spirit happens to be, it is inspiring to believe that it is still living on somewhere in a new and more perfect edition.

The body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the cover of an old book, It’s contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended by the author.

Epitaph authored by Benjamin Franklin