Author: Bryson Langford

At the beginning of this journey towards moral perfection, I chose five virtues that I wished to strive for: Tranquility, Moderation, Order, Patience, and Joy. These virtues were chosen with special care in order to allow myself some grace and peace within my life. Tranquillity, Patience, and Joy were specially to help me with this practice. Moderation and Order were to enhance my life through organization and scheduling events and time so that I could figure out where I was the most productive and fulfilled. While all of these I have deemed important, Joy is truly the one I hoped would improve. I found that along the way, working on all of my virtues led me to find joy more easily. So, while all of them are each valuable in their own way, Joy was the one that I thought would enhance my life the most. I feel as if I have contributed more of myself to my family and friends while doing this project. I have been overall a more positive person and I think that it shows in my daily interactions. I hope that while this process is now over, I will continue to improve and keep my optimistic personality alive so that I spread more joy to myself and others around me. 

I struggled with Order the most. I selected this virtue because I am not the most organized person when it comes to spaces and items. It is important to me to improve this because when I go into my bedroom, it often reminds me of stress and chaos with the state it is in. I truly believe that when my room is cleaner, I am calmer and am able to relax in it more. I have a hard time starting to clean when I have put it off for so long. Because it is not the most thrilling task, I often don’t make time to do it. To overcome this feeling, I want to continuously put away any items that I use right after I am done using them so that they don’t pile up into a big heap of stress. I am going to continue to work on this virtue because I believe that it will make me feel consistently better if I keep my room organized and clean. 

Throughout this process, I have been mostly successful on all of my virtues, minus Order, but the one that stands out the most is Joy. The benefits of this virtue are pretty simple and easily comprehensible. When I feel the happiest, I am truly myself and my life seems so much more vibrant. It’s almost like seeing color for the first time. Of course I have been joyful in prior years, but at this point in my life, I have found myself and found who I want to surround myself with. Through this journey, I have taken note of all of the things that have brought me the most joy every day, to try and find the patterns and continue to do more of what makes me feel fulfilled. I have found two things: I don’t always find joy from expected places and when I am with my friends and family, it’s hard to feel anything but warmth and bliss. All in all, this has really helped and changed the way I look at ordinary things and events and has made me much happier. 

Continuing to work on these virtues will help make my life better in many ways. For one, it will relieve a lot of stress and make me a much calmer person. It will also help me take a step back and enjoy what is right in front of me before looking ahead too far into the future. I hope to come back to these methods as often as I am able because these past two weeks have been significantly better as compared to previous ones. In response to Benjamin Franklin’s “Speckled Ax” essay, I understand and agree with the fact that sometimes perfection doesn’t have to be reached. And often–actually in all cases–it never is. However, I also don’t believe in settling for anything less than who you want to be. Our flaws make us special and unique, and marks and scratches on our surfaces are inevitable, but trying to smooth the edges makes the blade of our lives even brighter. While my ax still has rust on it, I accept it and will continue to enhance my virtues so that I can make my life even more shiny. If I continue to focus on the virtues of Tranquility, Moderation, Order, Patience, and Joy, I hope to gain a much more gratifying life.

Today was an alright day. I had to wake up early on my usual sleep-in day because I needed to study for my physics test. I honestly think that extra time sleeping really contributes to my overall mood and tranquility for the week and not getting that didn’t start my day off on the best note. 

I was at a solid level with my patience today as I really didn’t have much to do in any of my classes. It was much easier to stay relaxed and in the moment when I didn’t have any work that was super important to focus on. 

Moderation was successful today. I went to school, then a workout, straight off to tennis, and then back home. I had a brief window of down time where I talked to my friend on facetime until I had to eat a quick dinner and go to ACT tutoring. It was a very busy day, but I feel like I got a good mix of activities. 

Order was good for me as my room got cleaned. I am really hoping and working to keep it that way for a while by putting things away as they pile up and not after they have actually made a mountain on top of my other twin bed. 

Joy was a bit of a struggle today but I was able to find it in my physics test when I didn’t think I was doing well (not the joyful part), but when I got back my grade, I was pleasantly surprised by it and it made me happy and proud of the work I had put into it. 

One more day until Thanksgiving break and I am really needing it. While this week was pretty good overall, I am really glad it is almost over and that I will be able to relax for a while. Have a good night everyone!

Hello again!

Tranquility wasn’t all too great today because I had to do a lab in the morning and it was making me a little stressed. I just overall feel a little overwhelmed so being calm took more effort today. I feel like I did a pretty good job, but it definitely could have been better. 

Patience was decent today even though I was worried about things. While I didn’t necessarily feel calm, I didn’t feel rushed either and I was willing to wait until I actually had time to elevate some of that stress. 

Moderation was a normal amount because I went to school and then tennis, where I got to see my friends and do the thing I love. While I don’t have much time to moderate my schedule during the week, I think that over the break, I will have a great opportunity to spend a lot of time with my friends and family. I am really looking forward to taking a little time off of school. 

Order again was really failing. I haven’t done any cleaning today, but I am planning on doing some tonight because I don’t have as much homework. 

Joy was alright today. I did find joy in having lunch with my friends and seeing them periodically throughout the day, but I honestly wasn’t in that great of a mood overall. I did actually get donuts in my digital design class so that gave me a little happiness for a few minutes. I know it isn’t possible to have a great day every day, so I accept that it was just one of those okay days. I can’t wait for the break!

Have a great night everyone!

Hello!

Yesterday was a long but pretty successful day. Tranquility was alright but I was pretty stressed and hadn’t gotten much sleep so I wasn’t too calm. It was hard for me to get back into a calm state of mind after starting the morning overloaded. 

Patience was hard as well because I don’t really enjoy my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and so it was difficult for me to wait for school to be over and to get time to relax. I also took yesterday off tennis so I didn’t play as well today because my rhythm was a little off and I got easily frustrated by it. 

Moderation was alright as I went to school, then home for an hour to decompress and relax before I went to tennis. I then came back to do homework for the rest of the night for several hours, but I was also able to eat a quick dinner with my family so that was a nice ending to the day. 

Order was not good. I am really having a hard time keeping things in order but I know I will have to clean my room tonight because our house cleaners are coming Thursday and I need to tidy up so that they can actually deep clean. 

Joy was decent as I found talking to my friend for fifteen minutes after tennis was a really good source of happiness after all of my activities were done for the day. I am realizing that I am truly my happiest when I am with my friends and just laughing with them. It releases all of my stress and makes me feel grateful which is always a good feeling. I also listened to Taylor Swift while I was doing my homework at full volume, singing as loud as I could so that was also very cathartic.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a much better day where I feel like I was able to make more progress on my virtues. Only three more days until Thanksgiving break!

Currently my two favorite Taylor Swift songs!

My day was really good as I felt like all of my virtues went pretty well. Tranquility was successful today, especially after my fitness class where we did yoga. It was honestly a really relaxing way to start the day. It gave me a lot of peace to face the stresses of the beginning of the week.

I did fairly well on patience today. The reason I say that is because I really didn’t have anything in my day that made me anxious or feel overwhelmed to the point where I had to breathe and just be patient. So, it was a really positive day but I wasn’t really able to work on that virtue which I think is an accomplishment in itself. 

Moderation was great as I was able to spend time with my friends a lot today, which is something that I haven’t been able to do much of lately. I have been focusing on homework and getting ahead for the week as well as resting from tennis and recovering. I am so sore after playing all weekend!

Order was alright because I have been putting things away in my room and from my suitcase but it’s still pretty messy. I feel like I need to really commit once to cleaning it all up and starting fresh but it has been really hard for me to just set aside time to do that. 

Joy was great today because I got to be with my friends. They bring me a lot of happiness and just being around them makes me feel lucky and grateful to have them in my life. I really want to prioritize time with them because I am always so much better-off when I get to see them. 

I hope all of you have had a good start to your week!

Hello everyone!

I am on the plane back from Chicago and I think today was a good day to practice my virtues. Tranquility was alright for me today. I played in the semifinals of my tennis tournament and won but I was pretty nervous the whole time so I still need to continue to work on my breathing during matches. I lost in the finals so I got 2nd in the tournament and my tranquility wasn’t as good. 

Patience was almost the same as tranquility as when I get nervous or overwhelmed during a match, I get impatient and try to go for too small of targets and too big of shots.  I did pretty good at this during my first match but not very well in the finals.

Moderation was actually good today even though I played two matches. I got to walk around Chicago in the city and even got to go shopping and get ice cream. I am looking forward to taking the day off tomorrow and spending some time with my friends. 

Order was good as well as I did a good job getting packed and ready to go in a short period of time. I am hoping that I will be able to clean my room more now that I’ll be back in town. 

I also found a lot of joy in my day. Even though I lost my last match, I am still incredibly happy with my result of 2nd. Being able to see the city was also a major point of joy as well. Overall, it was a pretty good day!

Hello again!

Today was a really great day and was a good opportunity to practice my virtues. Tranquility was something I had to especially work on since I played two tennis matches. It is really important to stay calm and focused while you are playing in order to stay in every point. I did a great job of that today as I ended up winning both of my matches to be playing in the semifinals tomorrow! 

Patience is also something that was applicable to today while I was waiting for courts to open up so I could go on. I ended up having to wait for two hours after my scheduled match time to play and so I really had to stay patient in order to keep calm and relax before the match. 

The thing I am joyful about today is pretty simple as it makes me very happy when I win matches and make it this far in a difficult tournament. I am grateful that I get to play in the first place and it gives me extra happiness when it goes well.

Moderation was a virtue that I couldn’t really work on today as I was pretty much playing tennis and getting ready all day. Order was the same as I am still in Chicago but I have been doing a good job of keeping all of my things organized in the hotel room and keeping my suitcase clean. 

Overall, it was a good day for me and I hope it was the same for all of y’all!

Hello from Chicago!

The plane ride was so peaceful that I was able to practice my tranquility and give myself the chance to relax and take a moment for myself with a nap. When I woke up, I looked out the window of the plane and saw the beautiful water of Lake Michigan. The small waves (if that’s what you call it since it’s a lake) in the middle of the water looked like little sparkles that danced on the surface, shimmering and glittering. I think that water is so peaceful and that one moment actually gave me a lot of tranquility. 

Moderation wasn’t really one of my priorities today since I went to school and then went to the airport to then play tennis in Chicago. In all, I couldn’t really work on this virtue today but I am also okay with that since it is not always possible to do that every day. 

I wasn’t able to work on Order that much today either in respect to cleaning my room, but I was able to keep everything straight when packing and getting all of my stuff through the airport and to the hotel. I won’t be able to clean this weekend since I am not at home, but I am aiming to keep all of my stuff organized while I am out of town. 

Patience was something that I had to maintain today as going through the airport is always a tedious struggle. Also the Chicago traffic is a nightmare in the late afternoon so it was difficult for me to wait without getting somewhere fast. I thought I did a good job with this virtue though.

Joy was good for me today as well. I found that just being in Chicago and traveling made me happy and grateful that I got to be here. The city is breathtaking and, even though it was freezing, it was still incredible to see. I am also happy that I get to play in a tennis tournament tomorrow and that gives me something to look forward to. 

I hope everyone had a great Friday!

Joy was my main virtue of the day. I found a lot of joy in tennis today. I played with my coach for an hour and then went to a clinic with all of my friends. It was a great time and I felt like I really loved the game and the energy of the clinic and it made me really happy to play. Today was a really good day for me emotionally as I felt completely satisfied with everything that I had accomplished and I truly felt content. 

I had pretty good Moderation today as I made time for school, tennis, friends, and family. I went to school during the day and then to tennis, where I was with some of my friends and was able to talk to them and get social time. I came home and sat down and ate dinner with my family and then worked on homework. 

Order was okay for me today. I picked up some of my room and it looks slightly better than it did, but there still is more to be done. I hope that I get more time to do that once I come back from my tennis tournament over the weekend. 

I think that because I felt joyful today in almost all aspects of the day, I found myself being both tranquil and patient. People say that time flies when you are having fun, but I have actually found it to be the opposite. I think that when you take the time to enjoy the little things and take your mind off of all your stress, life starts to go by slower as you are savoring every moment and not letting a minute pass by. 

While this is not one of my virtues, I am also focusing on positivity as a part of this whole journey to moral perfection. I love to look at positive quotes every day to remind myself to stay focused on all the good things. From now on, I am going to include one of these quotes as an image to keep us all going on goals! 

I hope everyone had a great day!

Today I worked on Patience and staying in the moment. I was invited to an awards event for tennis where I received two awards. The first one I got with Greta, which was for exceptional sportsmanship in our age group. I also got a service award for my work with an organization called Second Serve which helps collect and distribute gently used tennis equipment to underprivileged kids. Instead of thinking about the next thing, I allowed myself to be patient and enjoy my successes before I rushed off to something else. I only had to say the phrase “Now is the time to be aware of the present moment. I let go of the past and the future” once. I thought I did very well on this virtue today. 

I was mostly tranquil throughout the day except for a few moments where I stressed, mainly on my math test when I didn’t exactly know how to solve a problem. However, I stayed mostly calm and it ended up paying off as I did well. While I did not have the time for a calm meditation, I did reflect on my day when I was going to bed and made peace with it. 

Moderation was somewhat of a struggle today as I was at school for most of the day, then went straight to tennis, from there went to the awards event, and then got home late only to do homework. However, I was able to spend a lot of time with Greta when we were getting our awards along with my family who was also there. While this was time already planned, I still got to experience a well-balanced day as a whole. 

Order was not very good today. As I mentioned earlier, my whole day was busy and planned down to the minute so I did not have any time to clean my room. I will have more time tonight and hope to be able to get everything organized so that when I leave for Chicago for a tennis tournament this weekend, I will be able to come back home to a clean room. 

I found a lot of joy in the day, especially at the awards banquet. I got to spend time with Greta and talk to some of my other friends who play tennis who were also recipients of awards. I had a great time and loved having that time to relax and celebrate. Joy was probably one of the virtues that I had the most success with today, only second to Patience.

Tranquility was my main virtue that I focused on today. As I had a test coming up the next day, I was beginning to feel anxious and overly nervous about how I would perform. Calculus has not been my strongest subject this year and while I only have a high B at this point in the year, I am still exerting an unreasonable amount of pressure on myself to get it up to an A by the end of the semester. As soon as a felt myself slip into panic mode, I sat down and placed a hand on my heart and took long, deep breaths for ten minutes. This served as a meditation to remind myself that I am human and that I am not perfect and make mistakes sometimes.

I did not really succeed at moderation today because I pretty much spent all day studying for math. I did not have time to spend with my family or talk to my friends and I continued working even after my parents went to sleep.

I did not make any progress on order because I simply have had no time to clean my room. I want to be able to clean it tomorrow because I predict that I will have less homework, and therefore have more time to get things put back in place.

My patience was tested while I was trying to figure out my review worksheets on math. I was struggling with some problems and I just needed to be patient in order to calmly figure out how to work through them. I did decently well with this although I felt myself getting anxious at some points during the study session.

I started my joy journal and one thing that I found joy in today was the feeling of satisfaction after a long day and being able to get in bed and go to sleep. Even though it was an overall busy and stressful day, knowing that I got through it all and that I was going to be okay made me feel like I accomplished something.

Hello! I am creating a blog in the attempt of moral perfection, simulating the experiment performed by Benjamin Franklin throughout his life. As he famously quoted, “I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into.” I am striving to do the same thing here. While Franklin’s experiment with virtues was an ongoing task, I am putting the trial on a smaller scale of two weeks, using five virtues (three of Franklin’s and two of my own) instead of the thirteen like Franklin. As an American student, I am familiar with Benjamin Franklin as a founding father. Through American history classes, Franklin has been a main topic during the American Revolution and further. I am motivated by the idea that I can better myself and set goals to further enhance the quality of my life and happiness. While I believe that no one can possibly be perfect, the concept of moral perfection and the attempt to get there can be really helpful when it comes to self-improvement. I hope to do this by focusing on my five virtues.

The first virtue I want to work on is Tranquility, or the idea of staying calm through difficult situations and finding your way to the eye of the hurricane. I often become anxious and emotional over things that truly don’t make much of a difference in my life. I want to focus on my successes rather than the things I deem to be failures. My goal is to find peace with where I am at in my life whether that is in school, relationships, or tennis while still being able to make progress in these areas. To do this, I am going to meditate each morning for ten minutes and reflect on what I have accomplished in order to start my day off content with where I am and where I am going. The next virtue I wish to develop is Moderation. While my organization is something that I am proud of, I would like to be able to find time, no matter how busy my schedule is, to spend time with friends, family, and most importantly, myself. To do this, I am going to plan out my week in advance so that I make sure I have time to enjoy myself and spend time with the people that I love. Order is another one of Benjamin Franklin’s virtues that I hope to improve. Because I am already working on moderation with my schedule and being organized in that aspect, through this virtue I am going to focus on my tidiness when it comes to my room and physical things. I will start with a deep clean of my room and then continue to do the little things to keep it neat, such as putting laundry away and throwing away papers and assignments that I no longer need. Patience is also another virtue I would like to concentrate on when it comes to thinking about the future. I want to minimize that feeling that I always have to be moving forward and looking ahead because I feel like I tend to miss things in my present life because I am thinking about the place I want to be at later in my life. Whenever I feel myself getting overly anxious about something in the future– college, tests, etc.– I will repeat this phrase silently to yourself three times: “Now is the time to be aware of the present moment. I let go of the past and the future.” I will record how many times I say that every day and try to reduce the number of times I say it to show that I am finding it easier to stay in the moment. The last virtue deeply connects with Patience: Joy. I want to recognize the things that bring me the most joy and try to do those things as much as I can. In order to figure this out, I will journal one thing per day that I find brings me the most happiness. At the end of two weeks, I will have a list of things that bring me joy and I will strive to use that to find much more enjoyment in the future. These five strategies will be the things I use for the next two weeks to really enhance the concept of moral perfection.

I am hoping to gain a better understanding of myself and where I am at mentally and emotionally in my life at the end of these two weeks. I want to be able to develop strategies that will help me improve myself. I predict that this is going to be very hard for me because I am pretty tough on myself and feeling content is something I struggle with every day. I am excited to attempt moral perfection and I really want these goals to succeed because it would make my life so much better. While I am not expecting this to go completely smoothly, I hope that I will at least take something out of it and learn something from this experience.