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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: The Original Self-Help Book, a la Shmoop.

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We all want to improve something about ourselves.

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Maybe you'd like to trade the Firestone around your waist for something a little smaller...

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...or maybe you'd like to attract that hunky senior without first having to induce Stockholm

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syndrome. Enter the self-help book.

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Self-help books are tomes of infinite wisdom and great perception…

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…containing advice and prescriptions for achieving perfection in certain areas...

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...like how to be a better pope...

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...or how to get rich by printing counterfeit money.

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Of course, for some people, a self-help book dug out of the bargain bin at Walmart won't

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do.

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Benjamin Franklin, for example, was so awesome that he had to write his own self-help book…

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…aptly titled The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

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Franklin dabbled in just about everything

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He served as the first American ambassador to France...

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...he suggested that the turkey be the national bird of the United States...

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...he invented bifocals… and fathered an illegitimate son.

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Truly, Franklin was a Renaissance man. Yet even he sometimes thought he could use

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improvement.

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Maybe it was because he wasn't as good at the glass harmonica as George Washington was.

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So, Franklin sought perfection by listing thirteen moral virtues in a small notebook.

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Then he kept track of how often he screwed up.

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Today's self-help books are very different from the scheme Franklin used.

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While Franklin wanted to improve his character – because no one needs two children born

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out of wedlock...

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...the modern self-help industry caters to those who want to correct superficial flaws.

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Also, Franklin understood that there was only one way he was going to become a better person…

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…by working hard and exerting self-control.

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Because so many of the flaws we see in ourselves today are physical…

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…hard work and self-control can't always take us as close to the perfection we desire…

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…as money and a good plastic surgeon. The belief that we can achieve whatever we

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want, that we can be perfect, is as American as the bald eagle...

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...um, turkey.

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Yet our perception of what it means to be a better person has morphed over time.

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Perhaps we should all take a page from Franklin's book...

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...so that, when we seek to improve ourselves, we do so not just for our own benefit, but

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for the benefit of others.

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We thought you might gobble that up.

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