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.
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About dianabletter
Diana Bletter is the author of The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. 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, Times of Israel, and is a freelance reporter for The Jerusalem Post, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.
Great words of wisdom to follow Diana. Thank you. Now I have to think of a new word!
Liz