It’s been a while since I read further in this excellent book, and because I’ve only gone halfway through this section, I’ll keep this briefer.

Rogers’ overall points in the opening—“Motives of personal gain tend to be opposite of one's true self-interest”—is captured in the anecdotes in the first half:

• Franklin is on a boat stuck in the water, and he imagines a little clearing on the shore would be a perfect place to relax and read out of the sun. He gets the captain to row him over and finds it to be marshy and bug-filled. What looked good turned out not to be good.

• The theme continues in a letter Franklin wrote to someone on the death of their pet squirrel, who got out of its cage where it was well-fed and well-cared-for, and eaten by the family dog. Moral of the story? “Learn hence, / Ye who blindly seek more liberty, / Whether subjects, sons, squirrels, or daughters, / That apparent restrain may be real protection, / Yielding peace and plenty / With security.”

• Last, Rogers samples letters from Franklin complaining to proto-American and British readers about the waste of conflict, policing and war in the conflict over increased taxes on tea. That, of course, was one big gas spill that helped light up the fire of the American Revolution. Why couldn’t the Crown be satisfied with lower taxes, thus spending less on military enforcement and earning more tax than happened when American just turned to illegal (foreign) sources of tea to avoid the tax? The situation yielded less tax revenue and more money spent to collect it, and ultimately led to an easily governable set of loyal colonies fighting to leave the empire.

Enforcing laws and saving face … freedom from a gilded cage … a break from the beating sun on a ship’s deck. All these looked like intolerable situations. But, Rogers’ hand-picked examples from Franklin’s writings highlight a situation we’re familiar with: We cut off our own nose to spite our face.

And, of course, this angle is only the first of two major parts of Rung Five. The other, to come, is to sell us on doing good for others as better benchmark than trying to do good for ourselves. Franklin will argue that when we are wrong or deluded about our own self-interest, that gets us into trouble.

Now, remember: These examples above are just fabulous or deliberately less nuanced and more one-sided than the entire situations, right? Franklin didn’t know that pleasant-looking grove was marshy. The squirrel couldn’t know its life would be in danger in escape. The British thought they could punish the Americans into doing what they wanted. I think Franklin is arguing that more thought about the “right” thing to do—what our goals really are—is what will serve us. And simply what serves our needs and wants is a poor long-term goal.

Rung Five—
Motives of personal gain tend to be opposite of one’s true self-interest

Questions to Maybe Ask During Rung Five

1. What “greener grass” are you prepared to leap to, but haven’t considered fully the pros and cons of a change? (Consider the British spending millions to kill a few American colonists and losing their tea tax proceeds to illegal foreign tea consumption.)

2. In what ways does self-gratification win out over self-interest in your life? Rogers writes, “[J]udgment becomes clouded and reason becomes dysfunctional when self-gratification becomes a primary motivation in choosing and pursuing one’s goals.” Do you see a difference between the two? Why or why not?

3. Rogers writes, “Benjamin Franklin chose the course of modesty and disinterestedness as a means for progressing.” (Consider, especially, his statement on frugality here.) Is being less moved, and seeking less, praise from others a path that could work for you? What about holding a little more distantly, disinterestedly, material rewards and focusing more on what good you do, not what good comes to you?