Today, we start.
The start is for improvement. Improvement for our farm, our family, our future, our faith, finances, or any other word you want to implant for improvement.
I'm going to walk you through Ben Franklin's 13 virtues, discuss them and see how we can use them in our life or business.
As I mentioned in the last post, I believe this is one of the greatest contributions "Poor Richard" gave to civilization.
Over the span of the following posts, we will look at each trait, break down the meaning, and take an inventory of where we are in life on a given trait.
We will discuss how working on it can compound life growth to unfathomable heights or inversely, compound us to a downward spiral.
Let us begin with TEMPERANCE.
Webster defines,
Temperance: noun
1 :moderation in action, thought, or feeling : RESTRAINT 2 a: habitual moderation in the indulgence of the appetites or passions
b: moderation in or abstinence from the use of alcoholic beverages
Do you hear that? The rumble of thunder in the distance. The sky has clouded over. Thunderheads are spiraling up in the hot humid afternoon. A storm is about to push through. I feel the rumble of energy. I see and then hear a crack of lighting.
Are you prepared? Can you wait it out in the shelter? Can you run to get out of the rain or swim out of the water in a flash flood?
Temperance can allow you to wait the storm out, and get back to life after.
Mr. Franklin, though never a man of perfection, mentioned...
"Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
What do our vices cost us??? Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, prescription overmedication, sugar overload, compulsive eating or shopping and the dopamine addiction from social media likes. The list of these thieves of our success is endless and often I see many of these vices normalized and accepted into our culture as "normal".
When the storm blows through in life, can you get and stay dry? Can you run for your life or is the cloud that will kill you or your family? When asking myself these questions and analyzing wether or not I was living to my full potential, I realized was not. Temperance was thrown out the window in many circumstances.
The Latin temperantia ‘moderation’, from temperare ‘restrain’.
I needed to apply moderation and restraint to several items in my life. My emotions, anger, frustrations, and my fear. I realized I am living the life I live based solely on the decisions I made from this moment past.
Just like a tree growing, branches change, die off, and morph their functions for survival. I realized I must cull behaviors.
There were things I needed to quantify and say "I don't do that anymore." This is a decision in applying temperance. My growth must never stop.
If you want to grow, thrive, and survive, you have to be like this banyan tree.
Fill your space until you cannot grow anymore. Grow without authority. Grow without chemical dependence. Grow without social proof. Grow not out of reciprocity to others. Grow not out of liking and loving tendency for others. Grow to live and produce for yourself and others.
Apply temperance to the flaws that inhibit your growth. They come from within. Apply martial law to the mind and win. Many psychological factors are at play on us vying for our time, energy, attention, and all other forms of capital. Guard them.
Don't let the lack of temperance be the chains that hold you back.
Just as tempered steel hardens by applying pressure from heat and carbon, tempering yourself will come with energy, stress, and the quench. You will be stronger.
Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger have been quoted many times using Samuel Johnson,
"The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."
I hope you apply it. Keep hammering, and make it happen. Break one strand of the cable that binds each day. I believe you will see, as Mr. Franklin did...
"It tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up.”
I hope you apply temperance wherever you need it in your life. It will pay dividends that will compound indefinitely. It takes pennies to make dollars. Have the tenacity and guts to answer the fundamental question, "What don't you DO anymore?"
Did you go Forward to the Basics to shelter from the storm? I hope so and when you do, I'll see you in the post-storm clear, cool, blue sky.
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