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Benjamin Franklin's Ego

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As we age and experience life our personalities change and we either become jaded or we learn from our experiences and make ourselves into a better person. The latter is how Benjamin Franklin approached his life. Franklin went from a poor boy barely scraping by to a wealthy man of privilege who used his wealth and status to help others, to continue to learn and develop a massive ego. Benjamin Franklin grew up one of seventeen children in Boston, New England. As a young child his father groomed him to become minster however his inability to grasp mathematics caused him to be removed from school and he became an indentured apprentice to his older brother as a printer. Franklin always enjoyed reading and was able to use his knowledge gained in …show more content…

It was not until a friend pointed out to him, “that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances” (Franklin), that Franklin realized that his ego was a problem and vowed to cure himself of this vice. Unfortunately, it seems this was one of the vices he was never able to overcome. He was boastful throughout his autobiography speaking highly of his accomplishments, in one instance as he was speaking of his annual Poor Richards Alamack, he said he considered it “a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people” (Franklin). In reading this section of the autobiography, you clearly see that Franklin no longer considered himself a common person but someone of higher degree. Ego is truly the downfall of so many people these days and the one vice that most people never overcome. My ex-husband had an unhealthy ego and it only grew as he got older. The more he accomplished in his life, and the more praise that he garnered the more highly he thought of himself. However, unlike Benjamin Franklin he let his ego get the better of him and in turn thought he was above becoming addicted to drugs and always felt he could control it, which was not the

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