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“You pay too much for your whistle.” We as humans often invest too much in things that are in reality worthless and in turn contribute to our unhappiness. This is portrayed in “The Whistle” by Benjamin Franklin through his personal experiences both as adult and a child. Is what we give up really worth what we receive? That is too often not the case in many different circumstances. No matter what the situation the basis and the concept is still the same.
“My brothers, and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth…I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.” In this anecdote referring to when he was seven years old and bought himself a whistle you see how the fact that he invested too much in the whistle which in the end made him unhappy. However when you think of this story don’t think of a little Ben buying a whistle, think about the underlying message behind it. The message or lesson that Benjamin learned at that age is something that he carried with him for the rest of his life; he learned that he paid “too much for the whistle”. In other words, all the money that he spent on the whistle did not make much of a difference because it still wasn’t worth as much as he paid for it which was very disappointing and upset him. He, at this instance had sacrificed all of his money for the one whistle and it wasn’t that valuable to begin with.
The lesson that Ben Franklin learned as a little boy he carried with him throughout his adult life as well. He also spoke of a man who sacrificed his time and practically all of himself for something not worth much which in this case was the favor of the courts. “When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends to attain it, I have said to myself, this man gives too much for his...