Author: Ike Sheets

I have completed my virtues experiment and I am very proud of the outcome. Attempting to follow these virtues had a positive impact on how I act and treat others. Through this assignment I have realized that I am able to keep a promise given to myself. At the begging of this journey I made a promise with myself that I would try my hardest to better myself by following my 5 virtues. I have seen improvement in every virtue over the past 10 days. The virtue I struggled with the most would be Sincerity. Sincerity was very hard for me because of my busy schedule with sports and school work. Doing this experiment made me realize how much family time I miss with everything going on in my life. When doing this experiment, the days I was able to spend more time with my family made me a lot more happy. The conversations I have with my brother make me have a much better day and can improve my tranquility also. The virtue I had the most success with was Order. The way I maintained Order was by writing down all of my homework and to do’s in my notes app. I would check this frequently, allowing me to keep Order throughout the day. This virtues experiment helped me realize how important setting goals is for yourself because it gives you something to work for. After a good day of virtues I would feel good about myself boosting my inner moral. Overall, this journey has been very rewarding, and plan to keep some of these virtues on my mind.

Today is my last day of recording these virtues, so I wanted to be my best for the day. To start off, I was able to maintain Order by writing down all my homework that is due over Thanksgiving break. I rate this method a 10/10. Next is Humility which I’m gonna rate it a 9/10. Staying humble is important and something you can always improve on. Next is Frugality. I give my Frugality a 6/10 because I spent money on gas. I can work on improving this by carpooling more with friends. Next is Tranquility. Today I had a very high Tranquility. I had tests but since I was prepared for them I had no worries. Lastly is Sincerity. Today I worked on Sincerity by offering to take my brother to his practice and giving my mom a break. It was good to have some alone time with my brother. I would give this method a 8/10. Overall it was a very successful day.

Today I wanted to focus on Order. This virtue was very important for today because I have 2 tests. I maintained Order by giving myself a layout of how to complete homework and also be able to make it to soccer practice. I give this method a 9/10 because I didn’t leave anytime for free time. For Tranquility, I would give myself a 7/10 because I’m nervous for my physics test. For Humility, I would give myself a 10/10. For Frugality, I gave myself a 10/10 because I was been able to save my money. Lastly is Sincerity. Today my sincerity was a 4/10, because with all my homework and soccer practice, I only got to eat dinner with my family.

Today was a much better day. My virtues improved from yesterday. To start, my Sincerity was a 9/10 because I got to eat dinner with some of my friends. This was really good to take a break from all the stresses in life. Next is Frugality. I had to buy gas which is pretty expensive nowadays so I would give frugality a 7/10. My Tranquility is a 6/10 for the day. This is because of the 3 upcoming tests I have all on the same day. My Order is still upholding, even with my busy schedule and I plan to keep it at a 9/10. Lastly is Humility which is staying constant at a 10/10.

Today my virtues were really put to work. To start off, my Tranquility is lower than usual because of the large work load given on the final week before a large break, and basketball tryouts. I’d have to give my Tranquility a 4/10 for today. For Humility, I would give myself a 10/10 because I was humble after winning a soccer award at my banquet. My Sincerity was low today because I had school, basketball tryouts, and a soccer banquet giving me no time to see my family through the day. I would rate my Sincerity a 2/10 for the day. Order is a bit off with everything going on in my life, but I was able to keep track of what needed to be done for tomorrow. Order gets a 7/10 for the day. My final virtue was frugality which remained high because I didn’t get the opportunity to spend any money.

Today I focused on Tranquility because I didn’t have anything planned. To do this I relaxed all day and played some video games with my friends. This was really good in helping my tranquility because I wasn’t focused on anything and could relax. I would give this strategy a 8/10 because I was very unproductive for the day, but it was also important to have a day like this. My Order is at a 10/10 because I have all of my homework done for the weekend. My Sincerity is a 10/10 because I spent an hour or so hanging out with my brother. My Humility is a 8/10 because I was being arrogant after beating my brother in video games. Frugality is still at a 10/10 because I have been able to save my money.

Today was a very successful day for all of my virtues. My Sincerity was a 10/10 because I got to go out to dinner with my family. My Frugality is still at a 10/10 because I have been saving my money instead of buying stuff. My Tranquility is 9/10 since it is the weekend and I don’t have very much homework. My Order has been great recently because I have been keeping track of homework. Lastly, My Humility is still a 10/10.

Today my main focus was to improve on my virtue of Sincerity. This week I have been very busy with sports and other events in my life and haven’t been able to spend time with my family. Today I made sure that I could spend quality time with all of my family members. For my mom we went grocery shopping together and ran some other small errands. It was good to talk to my mom about a lot of different things. For my brother I played a few hours of video games with him. This was a lot of fun and good for him because he really enjoys to spend time with me. For my dad I helped him with some yard work . We raked up leaves for a while and he was very grateful for the help. I would give my Sincerity a 10/10 because of the quality time I spent with my family members. I would like to continue to do this more often because it connects me to my family more. For the rest of my virtues, Order is 10/10, Humility 10/10, Tranquility 8/10, and Frugality is a 10/1o.

Today was a really good day for tranquility. I had a test in math class and made sure to study so that I wouldn’t be freaked out during the test. Even though I didn’t really need to study for this test I decided to do it anyways and it helped me a lot more than I thought it would. It just refreshed my mind and allowed me to answer every answer with confidence. I would rate my tranquility a 10/10, and plan to keep doing this strategy. My order is still a 10/10, I’ve been doing a great job of keeping track of homework. My Humility is around a 7/10 because I was talking some trash during a dodgeball game. My Sincerity is a 4/10 because I wasn’t able to see my family very much. Lastly my frugality is still very strong so I would rate it a 9/10.

Today my main focus was Tranquility. I focused on the present instead of the future and it allowed me to remain tranquil. I would rate this method a 7/10 because it is still possible to look forward into the future and give yourself anxiety. For my other virtues, My Order is still at a 10/10, Sincerity is a 8/10, Humility is a 9/10, and Frugality is a 10/10. Tomorrow my main goal is gonna be Sincerity. I want to make sure I spend some time with my family because I don’t have anything going on.

Today I focused mainly on Order. After I received homework from all three of my teachers, I made sure to document it into my notes on my phone. This helped me remember what I had to do for homework. I would rate Order a 10/10 for today. For Tranquility, I would give myself a 10/10 because I remained calm all day and didn’t have any stresses. For Humility, I would give myself a 9/10 because I maintained a very humble attitude when some others around me weren’t. I would give myself 6/10 for Sincerity because I didn’t get to spend much time with my family today. my last virtue I wanted to work on was Frugality. I would give myself a 4/10 because I spent some money to go play basketball at Matt Ross community center. Overall, it was a pretty good day.

I’ve decided to start my first ever blog. I’ve created this blog to help me keep my virtues present in my life and to share the journey with the internet. The main reason that I am starting this blog is because of the one and only Benjamin Franklin. After reading Franklin’s Moral Perfection auto biography, I was enlightened of some very important virtues that I wanted to implement into my everyday life. While reading this autobiography, I realized that 5 of his virtues were things I needed to improve on, so like any other individual I’ve decided to write about my experiences of these virtues and how I go about implementing them into my life.

The first virtue that caught my attention was Order. In my life I get very caught up in everything and seem to lose my sense of order. Whether it is forgetting to do my homework for school, or losing track of items at school, order is very important and is something I need to improve on. To improve on order in my life, I plan to keep track of things in the notes tab on my phone. I think this will help keep track of everything in my life and allow me to maintain order. The second virtue I want to improve on is Tranquility. Tranquility is an important virtue for me to improve on because I tend to freak myself out over little things when they really aren’t a huge deal. I’m going to try and improve on this by looking more to the future rather than the present and see if this problem will affect me in the future. The third virtue I’m going to work on is Humility. I’ve already got decent humility, but being humble is something I believe is very important and everyone should be good at it. I will gain better humility by listening to others, and being grateful for what I have. The fourth virtue I’m going to implement into my life will be Sincerity. I want to gain better sincerity, because it will bring me close to my family and friends and allow me to be the best individual I can. I can learn more about sincerity and how to improve on it. My fifth and final virtue to improve on is Frugality. I would like to improve on being frugal because I tend to buy things as soon as money comes to my grip. Being able to save that money and spend it on things I need will help with my overall happiness. I’m going to do this by putting a budget on my spending per week.

My hope for this virtues experiment is to be able to change my life in a positive way and to become the best person I can. I predict that I will be able to maintain at least 4 out of the 5 virtues. The one I see myself struggling with a little will be staying frugal during black Friday. Besides the frugality on black Friday I believe that I have a very good chance of improving on my important virtues. To be able to improve on all of these virtues listed is gonna be difficult, but I know that with hard work and dedication, I can do whatever I put my mind to.