Some historical figures are overhyped.  Hey, their fame is bigger than their game - that’s all.  But I think Ben Franklin deserves his place in the constellation of awesome and his face on the C-Note.  I won’t rehash all of his many accomplishments because that would take days (and besides Wikipedia can do it for me).  An interesting aspect to Ben, the person, as opposed to just the historical figure, is that he developed a fascinating system of self-improvement revolving around what he felt to be the key virtues a person should have.  Ben was the first to admit he had plenty of issues when it came to virtuous living.  But he wanted to better himself and came up with a way to do it.

Ben enumerated and defined thirteen virtues to focus on and work towards.  Rather than try to master them all at once and become Super Virtue-Man in a week, Ben challenged himself to monitor and improve one virtue at a time.  He even designed a notebook with the whole deal: columns and red ink and black spots.  It really sounds like something you would read about in a modern organizational or personal improvement program today.  You can read more about it, straight from Big Ben himself, right here.

I had read about this whole system before ever seeing the app I’m discussing.  Not that I actually read a history book or anything.  I’m pretty sure I first came across it a few years ago through this Lifehacker post.  It sounded like a simple idea but an awesome one…and I even resolved to try it.  My modification of the system was to write one word each week that represented a goal on the magnetic notepad stuck to my fridge.  Well, it didn’t really work out and was forgotten about in less than a week.  Maybe I should have written a virtuous or helpful word instead of “Everquest.”  Anyway, when I came across Virtues, from Equilibrium Enterprises, in the App Store, the whole experience came flooding back and I decided maybe technology would increase my Virtue Level to 744993, allowing me to defeat Goku.

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