On Benjamin Franklin’s Birthday: That Guy Had Sparkalation.

So what if he had a funny hairdo? The guy was a genius. Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin stove, bifocals, the odometer. He had sparkalation. (That is me, totally inspired, and inventing a new word.)

He was the founder of America’s first lending library and one of America’s Founding Fathers and Mothers. (Surely we must give credit to the women who, I am sure, sparked a lot of the ideas that were circulating at the time. I can just picture them behind the scenes, saying, “Dear, don’t you think it would be a good idea to write down the Declaration of Independence so it doesn’t get lost?”)

Anyway, the best thing Franklin said that is relevant to those who want to live their best chapter is this:

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

We can all try–just for today–to invent a new, positive word, and leave the rest unsaid.

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award, a novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins), a memoir, The Mom Who Took of on her Motorcycle, and The Loving Yourself Book for Women: A Practical Guide to Boost Self-Esteem, Heal Your Inner Child, and Celebrate the Woman You Are, an Amazon top-seller in several categories, and The Loving Yourself Workbook for Girls. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review and is currently a reporter for The Times of Israel. Diana and her husband have six children and an unofficially-adopted daughter from Ethiopia. They live in a small village on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Israel.

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