Benjamin Franklin

A cool app for your ipad or iphone is Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues Chart Ben’s Virtues. While still a young man, Franklin made a list of the twelve virtues he believed necessary to live a good life: 

temperance 

silence

order

resolution

frugality

industry

sincerity

justice

moderation

cleanliness

tranquility 

chastity. 

He devised a chart, one week for each virtue, and completed the entire chart four times a year. The app makes the chart for you, it's fun to follow. After completing his list, he realized it was necessary to add one more virtue, humility, as he knew deep in his heart that he was not a humble man.  Humility, said Franklin was something he had to work on his entire life.  He said, “there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.  Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one please, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.” Other than humility, he struggled most with order. Try as he may, he could not live by the adage, a place for everything and everything in its place. Which virtue would give you a run for your money?  I suspect tranquility will be my Waterloo.  (Who me, nervous???)