Franklin Matters: Franklin TV: Betterment

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Franklin TV: Betterment - The product of progress

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 01/05/2025

We are seekers. It’s that quiet yet constant flame from someplace deep within us. Life is quite literally a fire that has no flame. Is it a ‘burning desire’? No. It’s in the background of our consciousness, smoldering. Subtle, but smoldering nonetheless.

In November we seek to embrace gratitude and be thankful. In December we seek the peace of the season. As days wane, these are months for emotional reckoning. A mental settling of accounts. Settling in.

In January, we tend to seek a bit more. What lies forward?

How to frame January? Hope becomes restless. What do we seek? Is it direction? Is it progress? There is a somewhat technical term that insurance companies often cite – ‘betterment’.

Betterment refers to items (and their value) that the insured attempts to include in a loss claim that were not a direct or consequent loss resulting from the loss event. In plain English, if you were in a minor fender-bender and tried to include your worn brakes in a claim, that’s betterment. You seek a better outcome from a loss. Earned or not, we seek to tip the scales in our favor.

So here we are in January. Post-holiday doldrums. Restless. Hope against shapeless dread?. Seeking.

Impatient? Some might say we’re, ‘antsy.’ We want to get things moving somehow. (Even as we strive to retrain our muscle memory to write ‘2025’ instead of ‘2024’ .)

Last week I quipped about my ersatz holiday – Putter Day. Even in jest, it serves a purpose. It reminds us that the desultory doing of things – puttering – is a way to engage – to move from stasis – to shift from seeking to starting. If you’re unsure about what to do, just do something, no matter how simple.

Our lives are filled with gains and losses. On January first, Putter Day is not just about that one day. It’s a start. It’s our way forward – to some form of earned betterment.