IT seems everyone is trying to be a better person these days.

Everyone is trying to be mindful.

Everyone’s applying the Law of Attraction.

Everyone’s posting motivational quotes on Facebook and Twitter.

We live in an age of self-improvement. Walk into Waterstones and there’s a huge section on self-help.

I’m not averse to a little self-improvement myself.

I’ve read The Secret, I’ve been to meditation classes, I like a smoothie.

We live in a self-critical, earnest age, but this is nothing new.

I came across the Benjamin Franklin 13-week self-improvement challenge recently. That’s a fun read.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding fathers of the United States. He was a man with fingers in lots of pies. He was a political thinker, writer, printer and publisher. He is credited with being the architect of the US constitution. He died in 1788.

Old Ben was into self-improvement in a big way, long before the advent of Paul McKenna books and Davina McCall exercise DVDs.

He coined the phrase ‘Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’. Advice I’ve never taken, by the way, being an inveterate night owl.

Energy and persistence conquer all things – that’s another of his sayings.

I digress.

Ben’s 13-week self-improvement challenge could very well be published today in a snazzy new edition, with accompanying motivational DVD.

Let us take a look at some of the wisdom he has to impart.

Temperance (“Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.”) Silence (“Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.”) Order (“Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.”) Resolution (“Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.”) Frugality (“Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: ie waste nothing.”) Industry (“Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.”) Sincerity (“Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”) Moderation (“Avoid extremes.”) Ben kept track of his progress on complex charts. He would place a dot on a particular day if he fell short of meeting that virtue. Franklin was a tedious, pious old trouser cough, wasn’t he? Top of my list of dinner party guests.

Don’t think I want to improve myself that much.

I prefer Oscar Wilde’s advice – ‘everything in moderation including moderation’ and ‘I can resist everything except temptation’.