The scene is immortalized in cartoons and films: a tiny angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other, each whispering competing advice into a person’s ear. This image is a shorthand for the internal tug-of-war we all experience daily. The angel nudges us toward our better selves, while the devil tempts us with the easy, the distracting, or the destructive.
This concept of tracking our inner moral and mental state is far from new. It has roots stretching back centuries, from medieval notions of keeping a spiritual “account of the soul” to Benjamin Franklin’s moral ledger. Franklin meticulously tracked his progress on thirteen virtues, marking his faults in a little book with the goal of achieving moral perfection.
So, what does a 500-year-old concept and a Founding Father’s self-improvement project have to do with your mental health in the 21st century?
Pretty much everything. The Ledger of Life journal takes this time-tested idea of self-accounting and gives it a modern, practical twist for navigating the chaos of contemporary life.
From Franklin’s Ledger to Your Pocket
The core principle of the Ledger of Life is simple: what you track, you can manage. Like Franklin, you use a ledger, but instead of tracking abstract virtues, you’re monitoring the daily “whispers” that influence your actions and well-being.
On one side of the ledger, you have Angel Whispers: the positive inputs. These are the urges to connect with a friend, reminders to meditate, or the feeling of gratitude for a simple pleasure. On the other side, you have Devil Whispers: the negative or self-sabotaging inputs. These are the temptations to doomscroll when you feel anxious, the craving for junk food when you’re stressed, or the impulse to lash out in frustration. The goal isn’t to achieve a “perfect” ledger with no Devil Whispers. Instead, the aim is to cultivate awareness and maintain balance, ensuring the actions on the Angel side of your ledger generally outnumber those on the Devil side. The physical act of writing down a whisper—”w: feeling annoyed”—creates a crucial pause between stimulus and response. It’s a circuit breaker that interrupts our automatic, often regrettable, reactions.
The 21st-Century Twist: Virtue Garnishes
While tracking whispers is the first step, the Ledger of Life system introduces a unique tool for actively responding to them: the Virtue Garnish. A Virtue Garnish is a pre-loaded, emotionally resonant piece of content—like a quote, a prayer, or a song lyric—that you deploy to neutralize a negative impulse.
The name and concept for “Virtue Garnishes” has a fascinating origin. It was inspired by a passage from Doctrine & Covenants 121:45, which was written by Joseph Smith via divine revelation on March 20, 1839. The scripture reads: “Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God”.
A garnish transforms a thought. It doesn’t just suppress the negative (since such thoughts often come unbidden and unexpected), but instead fills the space with something transformative, redirecting your energy toward a better outcome.
Putting It Into Practice: From Ancient Idea to Daily Habit
So how does this historical concept work in a modern context? Imagine staring at your screen, a huge project looming. The Devil Whisper of overwhelm creeps in, tempting you toward the comfort of procrastination. Instead of succumbing, you reach for your Ledger of Life and jot down: “w: overwhelmed by work.” That simple act creates a pause. You then deploy a pre-loaded Virtue Garnish: the simple mantra, “The first draft is always garbage.” The pressure lifts. You’re not trying to write a masterpiece; you’re just getting started. You open the document and write one paragraph, breaking the cycle of avoidance.
Later, a wave of anxiety hits. The familiar, almost magnetic pull to your phone begins: the Devil Whisper promising the hollow comfort of doomscrolling. But you’ve learned this pattern. You register the whisper: “w: urge to doomscroll.” This time, your Garnish isn’t a quote, but the first few bars of a favorite hymn that you hum under your breath. The simple melody shifts your emotional state, reconnecting you to a sense of peace. The urge subsides. You put the phone down, reclaiming your attention from the digital abyss.
Consider an email from a coworker. The feedback feels sharp, personal. Your chest tightens, and your fingers hover over the keyboard, ready to type a defensive reply. But you’ve learned to spot this trigger. You pause and write in your journal: “w: feel attacked by John’s feedback.” Your chosen Virtue Garnish for this feeling is a quote you’ve memorized: “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.” The heat dissipates. It’s not a personal attack; it’s just feedback. You delete the snarky draft and write, “Thanks for the feedback. Let me incorporate that.” A potential conflict becomes a moment of collaboration.
In each case, the key is the same: jotting down the whisper creates the space to choose a reply over a reaction.
Self-Awareness: The Key to Self-Mastery
The Ledger of Life resurrects the powerful, time-tested idea that self-awareness is the key to self-mastery . It provides a simple, structured system to audit what enters your mind and heart, just as someone with diabetes audits their sugar intake. By tracking the whispers and consciously choosing your garnishes, you move from being a passive recipient of influence to an active architect of your inner life. The ledger isn’t about achieving perfection – yet; it’s about paying attention, a rare quality in itself And in a world designed to hijack our attention and take away our agency, that may be the most virtuous act of all.