Make Your Bed

We think our story is over just because we decide to give into the survival of life as opposed to living. One simple task can change the world, wake up and "Make Your Bed".

Stop Surviving, Start Living

“A lifetime devoted to creativity is nothing but a scavenger hunt — where each successive clue is another tiny little hit of curiosity. Pick each one up, unfold it, see where it leads you next." - Elizabeth Gilbert

From the time I was eight years old to the present day, my dad would wake me up with one single sentence. “Make your bed.” Only for me to reply “No dad, I’m not going to make my bed just for it to get messed up when I come home.” It seems like a pointless waste of time when I could simply be getting five more minutes of sleep. Yet I would drag myself out of bed, pull my covers to the corners, fold over my sheets, and set up my overwhelming amount of throw pillows that every teenage girl is destined to have. This routine would carry on the days I felt excited to meet the world, and even the days where I didn’t want to leave the bed that needed to be made. I grew accustomed to waking up in the morning with the same phrase to start the day. But on a particular morning I wake myself up those five minutes early, I would always complain about to my dad. And I make my bed. I go eat my breakfast, I go to school, see my friends and live in each moment as it comes. At the end of the day I come home to a book on my bed and a note from my dad. I pick up the book with the large font staring me directly in the eyes, #1 New York Times Bestseller, Admiral William H. McRaven U.S. Navy Retired: “If you want to change the world… start off by Making Your Bed.” In 2019 the average global life expectancy was 72.6 years. The idea at question that I discovered within my dad’s note had said “The day where you make your bed without anyone having to remind you, is the day you stop surviving and start living.” In order for us to understand what this entails, we must first get out of bed and read our schedule for the days to come, next we must pull over our covers to reveal our inner sense of motivation for the world, and finally we will recognize the meaning of the first task of the day.

The Years of Our Life

Let us flip to the first page on our calendar. In our typical day to day life we go to school, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Though it feels as if everyday is the same and we are in our own personal loop of Groundhog Day. Allow us to take a closer look at the statistics put into this. Specifically, how much of our life we truly spend living. In order to achieve a realistic timeline we may consider mathematics to correct our work. Tyler Schmall from the New York Post published an article reflecting on the amount of time we spend sleeping in our lifetime. Most people receive around 8 hours of sleep each night. We take those 8 hours and multiply them by the number of days in a year, and then factor in the average life expectancy. It comes out to roughly 26 years of our life spent sleeping. That is more than a third of our life we don’t even see. Although sleep is most definitely a necessity, this number is going to be an important detail to consider shortly. Editor Leigh Campbell writes a study of her own exploring specific tasks and breaking down each hour and compacting it into the years of our life. We spend 13 years full of work, and an extra year of unpaid overtime.12-16 years of education and independent studying. 12 years spent on screen time, and as the technology industry continues to grow we can expect that number will rise even more. 10 years procrastinating. We spend almost 5 years dedicated to each meal. Around 3 years spent on celebrating holidays. A year and a half spent exercising and focusing on physical fitness. And a few extras including 136 days of getting ready, and 115 days of laughing. By the time we have completed our nature of surviving we have less than 8 years to live. When people get older, the number one piece of advice they give is along the lines of “life is too short.” But in retrospect was that time used to the fullest?

The First Task of the Day

"Don't wait, do it now."

Next we will stop ourselves from hitting the snooze button and uncover the direction our decisions take us. From the moment we are born we have a timeline of our life that is created that we are deemed to follow. It is as though there is a rulebook on how to survive. In comparison to how we are each individually our own unique human beings, we must consider the following: Our timeline will not be what everyone else's guide to satisfaction of a life well spent encompasses. We don’t have to spend our entire life trying to survive, we must stop surviving and start living so we can have more than eight years. With the statistics brought to attention it can seem nonetheless that this reality is far from being a possibility. However we can solve this by looking to Admiral William H. McRaven to encourage our path to change the world. In May of 2014 he shared a message with the graduating class of the University of Texas, that portrays the first step to living. “If you make your bed every morning you have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will turn into many tasks completed. Making your bed will reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made, and a made bed is encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

Get Inspired

There is only so much time in the world to do, to explore, to love and overcome every single episode of what it means to be human. And those eight years are not enough for it. Our response must strengthen the purpose of how we choose to live. We all have our days that go to waste, because of one bad moment after another. Our only choice is to accept and look forward to the next task we must complete. Because without that, we are just continuing to survive without growth. We have the power to change the world. At least let that be our own. We can inspire others with passions far greater than could be imagined. Establish an outlook for ourselves/, from everything with a glass half empty to a glass half full. The day I began to wake up and make my bed, I took control of my life. I encouraged myself to have a positive outreach on every action that followed. All of the things in life worth living, can only be achieved through trust and content with who you are, and who you want to become. Because that is what motivates you to wake up in the morning, get out of bed, pull your covers to the corners, fold over your sheets, and fluff your pillows. I have come to see it as if you want a good story, start at the beginning. The beginning of life. And that does not necessarily mean when you are born, but when you choose to make your bed without anyone reminding you, because that means you have stopped surviving and started living.