Benjamin Franklin gained the insight that the effort of seeking a good life was more important than actual achievement of perfection. He found that happiness and fulfillment came through his dedicated efforts.
When Ben Franklin was a young man of 20, he set out on his goal of achieving perfecion. In his words: “I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time.” He created a list of thirteen virtues to which to devote himself, such as industriousness, sincerity and moderation. Franklin kept with him a small recording book, with a chart for each of his virtue-oriented goals. He would evaluate himself each day and mark any time he violated one of the virtues. His goal was to get the number of bad marks in his book down to zero and thus be living a "clean" life. He never got through a day completely "clean," without violating one or another virtue in some way. But he said of the project: “Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, … yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been.”
