Why Is Benjamin Successful

Benjamin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston, Massaschuetts as the 15th of 17 children to Josiah Franklin. At a young age Benjamin’s future was already decided for him, and to please his father he followed suit. However Benjamin found reading and writing to be so fascinating that it pushed him to leave his family and move to Philadelphia where the journey of who he would become began. Benjamin didn’t come from poverty, in fact he came from a wealthy family who owned a printing business, he was also the right race and gender to be successful in his time. So although he was incredibly hard working and a self starter I believe the initial motivation to be successful started from the family he was born into. Benjamin became very successful
Benjamin believed he had the power to improve his own life, he wanted to teach people how to improve their own life, and in turn it would improve the community. Benjamin’s biggest achievements such as drafting the Declaration of Independence, famous writings and helping develop young America were possible because of his 13 virtues which he developed at age 20. Benjamin writes he chose “13 names of virtues all that at that time occur’d to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express’d the extent I gave to its meaning.” The 13 virtues were temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, charity, and humility. Benjamin writes that he does not have all of these but these are things he wants to strive towards, perhaps even work on one at a time until it is mastered and then he could move onto the next one. He would also track using check marks, each day when he wasn’t following these virtues, for example if he felt he was not humble on a Tuesday then he would put a check mark there and reflect back on what he did