One of the character traits that Benjamin Franklin wanted to pursue to perfection as described in his “Project for Moral Perfection” was Tranquility. He defined it thus: “Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”

And who hasn’t experienced “accidents common or unavoidable”?

In watching the news channels on TV, I am convinced that this character trait has fallen into disrepair, or at least is being disregarded, along with politeness and consideration. Franklin went on to add this advice:

“The malice of our adversaries I am well acquainted with,” [he wrote to a friend, Samuel Rhodes, July 8, 1765, who had just been defeated for an Assembly election] “But hitherto it has been harmless, all their arrows shot against us have been like those that Rabelais speaks of which were headed with butter hardened in the sun. As long as I have known the world I have observed that wrong is always growing more wrong, till there is no bearing, and that right, however opposed, comes [out] right at last.”

That seems to be the way our current President Donald Trump sees things. Right will come out right at last. How do you see trifles or other things?