Have You Taken An Honest Account of Yourself?

Taken from The Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin

Lesson 1

Begin With an Honest Account of Yourself

"Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated."

Before Franklin could teach anyone anything, he had to do something that most people find surprisingly difficult: he had to give an honest account of himself. Not a flattering account. Not a modest one designed to deflect praise. An honest one.

Notice what he does in that opening passage. He acknowledges both the distance he has traveled — from poverty and obscurity — and the means he used to travel it. He does not pretend the journey was easy or that he arrived by accident. He does not, on the other hand, inflate his achievements into mythology. He says, plainly, that he went far, that he used certain means to do it, and that those means might be useful to others. This is the posture of a teacher, not a boaster.

Franklin was acutely aware of the temptation toward vanity. He addressed it directly in the opening pages of his autobiography, and with characteristic wit: "Perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, 'Without vanity I may say,' etc., but some vain thing immediately followed." He did not pretend to be without vanity. He admitted it, examined it, and — crucially — made a case for its occasional usefulness. "I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it," he wrote, "being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor."

This is the first lesson and it is the foundation of everything that follows: you must be able to look at yourself clearly. Not harshly, not generously — clearly. Franklin's entire project of moral self-improvement, which we will explore in detail in later lessons, depended entirely on his ability to see his own faults without flinching from them and to acknowledge his own progress without inflating it.

He also introduced, early on, a concept he would return to throughout the autobiography, the concept of the erratum. He borrowed the printer's term deliberately. An erratum is an error in a printed text, noted for correction in subsequent editions. "That felicity," he wrote of his life, "has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first." He saw his life the way a careful writer sees a manuscript — as something that could always be improved, always be revised, always be made more accurate. And the first step in improving a manuscript is to read it honestly.

You cannot improve what you will not examine. You cannot examine what you are afraid to see. Franklin was afraid of very little, and he was especially unafraid of himself. He catalogued his mistakes throughout the autobiography — the money borrowed and misused, the promises broken, the letters not written, the people let down — with the same evenhandedness he brought to his accomplishments. This is not self-flagellation. It is self-knowledge. And self-knowledge, Franklin understood, is the only honest starting point for any program of growth.

Begin, then, where Franklin began. Not with a resolution to be better. Not with a list of goals. Begin with a clear-eyed account of where you actually are. What are your genuine strengths? What are your habitual failings? Where have you succeeded, and by what means? Where have you failed, and why? Do not flatter yourself. Do not condemn yourself. Simply look.

Daily Practice

Tonight, before you sleep, open a notebook and write what Franklin might have called your current account — an honest, brief inventory of today. What did you do well? What did you do poorly? What would you correct if today were a manuscript you could revise? Write without judgment and without excessive self-criticism. Simply record. Do this every evening for one week and notice what patterns emerge. Franklin did this for most of his adult life. He called it examination. It cost him nothing but a few minutes and a little honesty, and he credited it with much of the happiness of his life.