The Roles We Play

Let's assume we're going to bootstrap ourselves into some kind of improved moral shape. Then I think Franklin's virtues are admirable enough. But I'm not sure that's the best way to go about it. Some of them are a little abstract. For instance, his virtue of Order: "Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time." I actually do understand the sentiment, and I used to view my life in that way. Maybe I'll get there again some day. (It also reminds me of that Radiohead song "Everything In Its Right Place"--yesterday, I woke up su-cking-a-le-mon...) But it seems like there could be a more practical way to come up with something that specifies certain actions to perform and certain actions to avoid.

What I think might work better is to identify the different roles we play in life that are important to us. It matters to us that we do these things well. Here's the list that I would have for myself:

Husband
Father
Son
Brother
Friend
Employee
Compassionate Person (volunteering, donating money, etc.)

Approaching it this way, I could fill out a chart (if I was into charts--yes, ok, I'm into charts) for each of the roles. I could consider each role and ask myself, "What are my own criteria for doing this well?" And honestly, it would probably look very similar to what a Christian would consider to be a good Husband, Father, etc.. Except maybe a Christian dad would write down "Pray for family" and church related things. So just subtract that stuff, and you have my list for Husband and Father and all the rest. Then I could use it in a Franklinesque way. Every day going to the list and finding out how well I'm doing.

This idea of roles brings to mind Confucius. I recently read The Analects, which is a record of his sayings. Confucius was big on roles and each person's responsibility to fulfill them. To be a good person, to live an honorable life, was to play the part(s) you were supposed to play.

Here's my attempt at the Chinese character for husband:

Here's the one for father: 

And since I'm writing about Chinese characters, this is one of my favorites:

It's sometimes translated as "faith", but it has more of a connotation of trust in someone. As opposed to religious faith. The character is supposed to be a person (on the left) speaking words (horizontal lines on the right). It's also translated as "standing by words." You can trust people who stand by their words.