To summarize my introductory essay, I chose Benjamin Franklin’s virtues of Industry, Cleanliness, and Tranquility, as well as two of my own: temperance/moderation and productive downtime. Personally, I prioritized the balance between Industry and Tranquility, since as my workload increases I am looking to stay on top of it, without growing restless and burnt out. By having this balance, I feel like it would allow myself to accomplish more, while enjoying myself during the process, which can drive me to do tasks that would possibly fullfill both my industrious side, while making myself feel tranquil. Essentially, by balancing the energy that I had hoped to make more out of my days. Now, though I had set out to achieve all of these virtues, there were some that I had done well at while others were put on the backburner so to speak.
Throughout the process of blogging my virtues, it became clear to me that cleanliness and productive downtime were going to be my struggle suits. First off for cleanliness, I had already developed a habit of having a cluttered workspace that part of myself got used to it and the dirtiness either did not effect me or simply caused myself to avoid it alltogether by moving to another area. At times I had succcesses with cleanliness, but my motivation for it simply was not there, and I often opted for the easy solution since the time I had for it was limited. For the future, I would like to make my goal for cleanliness more specific, by possibly dedicating 10 minutes per day just to declutter. Hopefully by having something more concrete I would be able to see improvements in the area. Moving on to my productive downtime virtue, I also heavily struggled with this subject. Though I had the NYT mini crossword to get me through, it just does not take enough time for all the downtime I had. And with the downtime I had, I just wanted to recharge before my next industrious task and simply give my brain a break. Additionally, my idea for productive downtime would be doing something in the arts, and part of me was not motivated to start on a whole new art endevour in small intervals at a time. Overall, I feel like my productive downtime could be a lot more successful by planning something out that I would do in my downtime that I could revisit at ease at anytime, such as a paint by numbers painting or a puzzle. Overall, though I struggled with these virtues, I still have motivation and innovations to try to fix both my mindset and the way I approach these virtues.
As for my successes in this experience, I believe that my temperance/moderation virtue was the strongest. Even if I did not get through as much school work as physically possible, I still took it in chunks rather than procrastinating on it, which is a huge improvement for myself. Additionally, I had created a set plan for my moderation virtue by also creating a plan for SAT prepartions for a test in December. By taking SAT information in small chunks rather than cramming the final week, I feel that I will be more successful and less stressed come test day. For the future, if I keep a schedule with what I plan on doing, I feel that I would be able to balance my industry and tranquility virtues a lot better since I would have my work done at earlier periods, allowing for more tranquil downtime as well as less stress when it comes to procrastination. I am very proud of being able to improve upon moderation in my life since procrastination is a bad habit that I feel like this virtue can start to fix. Ultimately, my successes in temperance I feel could lead into other areas of life, pushing myself even closer to perfection.
Overall, I feel like this blogging experience allowed myself to be mindful of what I want to improve for myself, which caused the goal of “perfection” to be more obtainable. In improving these virtues, especially temperance/moderation, I was able to have a lifestyle that more accurately reflects what I want for my future. Specifically, with temperance, I was able to increase both my industry and productivity by simply being organized and rationing my work out over a long period of time, which made my work process plenty more enjoyable and effecient. However, there definetly is room for improvements too, which could further guide me to match my goals for my future. If I were to redo this experience, I would give myself specific activities that I could do that would measure my success with the virtues, but would most certainly continue the self reflection. Ultimately, the purpose of this project for myself was to shape my current self to better match what I want my future self to be. Even if perfection is impossible, it should not stop myself from trying to improve myself where I can.