My motivation behind this blog is to show my progress on five virtues important in my life: order, cleanliness, balance, patience, and kindness. This blog will track the different ways each day I improve myself in one or more of those areas. Benjamin Franklin strived to morally perfect himself in life. Franklin made it very clear that he was not working on these all at the same time, but instead working on every virtue one day at a time, similar to me. I strongly respect Benjamin Franklin and all of his wisdom, and I think this idea is something that many people, including myself hopefully, will and would find beneficial for life.
The five virtues I’ll be working on are order, cleanliness, balance, patience, and kindness. I chose order because I think when I’m more organized, I feel more at peace physically and mentally, making days and weeks run much smoother with a nice to-do list and plans for my weeks ahead. I chose cleanliness that goes kind of hand in hand with order and making sure my room is clean as well as mind, whether this is making my bed before I leave for school or going to a yoga class. I also chose balance because I think it is important to balance friend and family relationships as well as school and extracurriculars. Balance also kind of goes with order with the idea of making a plan and making sure I am balancing all my responsibilities. Patience is another virtue I chose because I think sometimes I get very impatient with not only those around me but also myself and don’t give myself the time of day to breathe and kind of regroup. Lastly, I chose kindness. I believe I already strive to be kind to those around me everyday, but would like to make that a priority and put good and positive energy into the world rather than stress and negativity.
My hope for this process is to obviously improve as a person but also to keep these lessons for the future and turn them into habits. My prediction is that I won’t be 100% successful but that I will most definitely benefit from focusing on these virtues. I am looking forward to seeing what this does to me and my daily life.
I love that you are working on cleanliness in two different aspects. I, too have a goal to make my bed and clean my room to feel more organized, but I didn’t even think about cleanliness of the mind!