How to Be More Patient: Franklin's Moderation Method

Patience is increasingly rare—and increasingly valuable. In an era of instant everything, the ability to wait calmly is a genuine competitive advantage.

Benjamin Franklin addressed patience through his Moderation virtue: "Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve." Here's how to develop patience using Franklin's method.

Key Takeaways

• Patience is embedded in Franklin's Moderation virtue
• Avoiding extremes naturally produces patience
• Resentment is a form of impatience with past injuries
• Patience requires practice, not just intention
• Modern life trains impatience—you must actively counter it

Franklin's Moderation Virtue

Franklin's definition:

"Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."

This has two parts:

1. Avoid extremes: Don't overreact or underreact
2. Forbear resentment: Don't hold grudges, even when justified

Both relate to patience. Impatience is an extremereaction to waiting. And resentment is impatience with past injuries—an inability to let time pass without rehashing wrongs.

Why Patience Matters

Better Decisions

Impatience leads to rushed choices. Patient people gather more information, consider more options, and avoid impulse errors.

Better Relationships

Impatience damages relationships. Snapping at someone, rushing conversations, failing to listen—these erode trust over time.

Better Results

Most valuable things take time. Career success, skill mastery, deep relationships, compound investment returns—all require patience.

Better Health

Impatience correlates with stress, which correlates with cardiovascular disease, weakened immune function, and shortened lifespan.

Technique 1: Avoid Extremes

Impatience is typically an extreme reaction—stronger than the situation warrants.

The Proportionality Check

• Is my reaction proportional to the actual problem?
• Would a calm observer think my frustration is reasonable?
• Am I treating a minor delay like a major crisis?

Recalibrate Your Baseline

If you're often impatient, your baseline expectations may be unrealistic. Try:

• Assume things will take 25% longer than expected
• Build buffer time into schedules
• Expect inconveniences as normal, not exceptions

Technique 2: Resent Not Injuries

Franklin's phrase "forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve" is striking. He doesn't say don't resent at all—he says resent less than deserved.

This is practical. Someone wrongs you; some resentment is natural. But Franklin says: even when resentment is justified, practice feeling it less than justice would warrant.

Why Forbear?

Resentment is a form of impatience: refusing to let time heal, replaying wrongs, waiting for apologies that may never come.

"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

How to Practice

• When wronged, ask: "What would forgiving this quickly look like?"
• Set a time limit on grudges: "I'll be upset for one day, then move on"
• Remember: resentment costs you energy, not them

Technique 3: Delay Gratification

Patience is the ability to delay gratification—to wait for bigger rewards rather than grabbing smaller ones immediately.

The famous "marshmallow test" showed that children who could wait for two marshmallows later (instead of one now) had better life outcomes decades later.

Build Delay Muscles

• Wait 24 hours before impulse purchases
• Let food cool before eating
• Queue entertainment instead of bingeing
• Practice meditation (pure waiting)

Reframe Waiting

Waiting isn't wasted time—it's practice time. Each moment of patient waiting strengthens the patience muscle.

Technique 4: Practice Systematically

Franklin practiced virtues through tracking:

"I made a little book... and marking on each line by a little black spot every fault I found upon examination."

Track Your Impatience

1. Each evening, note moments of impatience
2. Look for patterns: When? Where? With whom?
3. Identify triggers you can address
4. Celebrate reductions in impatience marks

Focus Weeks

Following Franklin's method, make Moderation (including patience) your focus virtue for one week. Give it concentrated attention before rotating to other areas.

Patience in Modern Life

Franklin didn't face:

• Smartphones delivering instant everything
• Same-day delivery expectations
• Real-time notifications
• Streaming on demand

Modern technology trains impatience. Every instant gratification reinforces the expectation of more instant gratification.

Counter-Training

• Intentional waits: Leave your phone home sometimes
• Slow activities: Gardening, cooking, walking
• Delayed consumption: Wait for weekly episodes instead of bingeing
• Offline time: Practice existing without real-time updates

Start Practicing

Use the Ben Franklin Virtues app to focus on Moderation this week. Track your impatient moments, identify patterns, and build the patience that Franklin considered essential to balanced living.