Hello friends,
I have a personal question for you today. Did you make up your bed this morning?
I don’t remember ever not making up my bed in the morning. Well, I take that back. There were quite a few years when I left for work before my husband was awake. The bed did not get made except for the weekend during those years.
When I was growing up, making up your bed was expected. At least, that’s what I remember. To this day, the first, or at least the third thing I do in the morning, is make up the bed. I don’t think about or ponder whether or not I should any more than I would question whether or not to breathe.
This week, as I made the bed, I tried to trace the source of this compulsion. I’ve always attributed this near-fanatical behavior to an expectation, no, command I received as a child. Until this week when I tried to recall even one occasion where the main reason for a scolding centered on an unmade bed. I could not.
Our memories fade and morph our experiences beyond reality.
As the oldest, I thought my sister, 15 years younger, might have another perspective or received a similar command. Her response:
“I did [make up my bed every day,] but I don’t remember anyone telling me to do that. I just assumed you had to make it up.”
So, why did we grow up never questioning, only complying, well into adulthood?
My mother always made the beds each morning. I watched my grandmother make the bed every morning. Our lives contain habits, routines we follow without thinking about them. We assume, like I did that, everyone does it.
When my wandering mind began chasing this idea, I discovered that some people leave the bed unmade to air out the bedding to reduce dust mites.
A few years ago, Naval Adm. William H. McRaven spoke to the graduates of the University of Texas and wrote a book based on his core life tenets.
Number 1—“If you want to change the world…start off by making your bed.” McRaven views this simple first task as a key to productivity.
My brief exploration didn’t find any experimental research on the effects of bedmaking on our productivity. I did find plenty of opinions and anecdotal evidence to support both sides of the issue.
My conclusion? Habits, good and bad, play a powerful role in our lives. Some habits become so ingrained that we never question why we do what we do. We assume everyone shares our way of doing things. “Our way” can color our perceptions of others.
I know many marvelous, world-changing people who rarely, if ever, make their bed. “To make or not to make” a bed—does it really matter?
Habits of kindness—now that matters.
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- Want to make a better world? I suggested a kindness habit in this post.
- If you’re curious, you can listen to the commencement address of Naval Adm. William H. McRaven.
- Bruno Mars sings about what matters in Count on Me.
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Wherever there is a human in need, there is an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference.
—Kevin Heath
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
—Albert Schweitzer
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Be and become your best today and every day.
With gratitude,
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