Mariana, Bustamante

Professor Vargas-Ortiz, Sabrina

EN105-BLH
19 January 2016
A Life Without Faults
Often people believe it is not worth seeking excellence when it can never be fully grasped
by them. Being a hard worker since childhood now working difficult hours to live a good life
where you can proudly say all you have is because of your strengths developed through past
experiences. Those around you are fascinated by your glories and follow through your steps to
accomplish a life as good as yours, however; there is always a black sheep in every group. Your
best friend has been unemployed for the past two years and lives off of your paycheck always
promising to pay you back in the future when it never happens. Every week they stay in their
house playing video games, buying expensive clothing, and eating in flashy restaurants having
the time of their lives with your hard earned working money. Thoughts pass through your head
saying how could they accept to live a dependent life style without even trying to do the effort of
doing a positive action for themselves and be proud of it by the outcome. How would you be
able to help your friend help themselves, or yourself if you fall in this category, from their bad
habits that only sink them deeper and deeper not allowing them to blossom. In Benjamin
Franklins essay Arriving to Perfection shows Franklins studies in becoming morally perfected
and the struggle to achieve the mastered level of excellence. He clarifies that to reach perfection
one must come to an understanding of ones habits and the frequency of how we prefer our habits
rather than from doing what is right, and reflect on how we can slowly prevent ones bad habits

from damaging our road to moral perfection. To live each day without committing any faults one
must take full control of their habits to prevent bad ones and acquire good ones.
During the project of achieving moral perfection Benjamin Franklin learns that the task
he had taken was much harder than what was expected, for the simple fact that Franklin was
comfortable with his usual costumes than the new ones he wanted to develop. Because of the
difficulties of breaking our constant habits and preventing slips of committing faults Franklin
advises us to attempt to fix each one of them at a time. Arriving at Perfection by Benjamin
Franklin, states, Like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the
bad herbs at once (Franklin 190). In his project Franklin attempts to acquire new habits that
will allow him achieve its purpose by the help of following the moral virtues. Depending on your
frequent faults you should strive to obtain mastery on each of the virtues step by step to become
morally perfected.
Each and every one of us loves to feel comfortable in the atmosphere surrounding us. We
would rather be warm and cozy than going out, feeling the cold slap our face, but to become
better as a person we must leave our comfort zone and find new ways to perfect ourselves. To
achieve moral perfection, we must admit to our flaws to fully understand our negative habits by
replacing them with virtues. For instance, the virtue of self-discipline, Temperance, and the
virtue of suppleness, Frugality. To obtain the virtue of Temperance we must master our own
desires and passions to restrain of any excessive actions that might damage others or ourselves.
Benjamin Franklin, in an essay of moral perfection, states, Temperance first, as it tends to
procure that coolness and clearness of head and guard maintained against the unremitting
attraction of ancient habits (Franklin 190) With the daily practice of Temperance we can have
the focus in which we need to follow our course of preventing and bad habits to resurface

causing us to keep committing faults. Such as, going to a celebration and excessively drinking
alcoholic beverages will cause you to lose self-control causing you to have coitus with a stranger,
injure or murder innocent people by drunk driving, etc. By simply violating Temperance you
have also violated the virtues of Chastity, Justice, and Tranquility. If the virtue of temperance
was used by being a responsible drinker the celebration would be peaceful and the time would be
enjoyable.
Practicing the virtue of Frugality, we must also master our excessive action of wealth to
live a simple and plain life. In an essay of perfection, Benjamin Franklin notes that Frugality
freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence (Franklin
190). The right of possessing wealth is to teach us responsibility, without the use of Frugality we
would struggle keeping our houses standing. Before making any unnecessary purchase ask
yourself is this a necessity or is it a desire, by answering that question you will need the virtues
of Temperance and Frugality. Do you want to have money after all the payments of the house or
have a nice nick-knack, decreasing your wealth and increase your debt? It is understandable that
we cant fight our habits in one blow when we are comfortable with them, just do not keep your
habits of overly purchasing useless object that you could replace with wonderful memories with
your family in the future by saving money. Take your steps slowly buy yourselves things you
desire but watch your amount of spending little by little these two virtues will be a piece of cake
and you will be closer to moral perfection.
As Benjamin franklin advances to hip project we can comprehend that we must have
balance in our lifestyle to develop positive habits and take a step forward to achieving perfection.
Understanding that too much of anything is bad even if it is good for us. As human beings we
want to be healthy and we go to the extrema to achieve it, when in fact we are only damaging

ourselves. We cut out as much protein we need from our diet to become slender, losing all the
vitamins necessary we need to grow. Having the habits of eating too much are as bad as starving
too much. The balance between both will give us true health no matter of your physical
appearance. Another example of balance between bad habits and good habits are our emotional
state. Benjamin Franklin, in Arriving at Perfection, states, Moderation forbear resenting
injuries so much as you think they deserve. (Franklin 189) Maintaining balance between our
emotions of love, hate, selfishness, selflessness, have a great impact to our road of moral
perfection. Loving one person over the others damages the love the others have for you. Their
love can become into hate distorting the peace of the home. Hatred the feeling that makes you
glad when you see your damager being damaged. That will only cause you to fall into more
despair and it will make it harder to heal from the wounds they inflicted. With balancing our
needs to wants, loves to hates, loose to restrains we can acquire good habits and prevent bad
ones.
Our constant behavior to events that happen around us are the cause of being on step
closer or farther away from moral understanding. In Arriving at Perfection we comprehend
that depending on our habits determine our process in our road to perfection. IN each step we
take we have to view our preference between our usual customs and what is right to study our
behavior and fully understand ourselves. Only then we will be able to fix our damaging habits
and come closer to our project of achieving moral perfection; to live each day without fault.
Although the journey might be difficult and perhaps impossible, it does not mean it is not worth
attempting it, even if you dont completely achieve it the hardship of the road still shapes you
into a better person.

Work Cited
Franklin, Benjamin. "Arriving at Perfection." One Hundred Great Essays. Ed. Robert DiYanni.
New