First Make Your Bed

If you read anything like what I read, “first make your bed“ is a piece of advice seen now and again.  The thinking goes that if you do this, even if the rest of the day goes completely sideways, at least you will have accomplished this one thing.  It is an exercise in building a good habit.

Decades back, I lived next to a young couple of which one of them had an allergy to dust mite poop.  You don’t want to know too much about dust mites because then you don’t want to lie in that bed, whether it is made or not.  (Still, knowing that nothing eatable goes to waste in the big circle of life – not even the dead skin cells you shed during the night – has some poetic value.)  The allergy of my plagued neighbor meant that every morning all the bedding came out into fresh air because sunlight is good against many things, dust mites being just one of them.  And thus inspired, I confess that making my bed is not the first thing I do in the morning.  I prefer to give the dust mites a bit of sunlight and let the covers air out.

Some of JoAnna Banana’s posts from her yard made me realize that this otherwise excellent piece of advice could have a different meaning.  JoAnna described what it took to get the yard ready for planting.  Reading her description, I verified the contents with my good friend who regularly offers tomato, pepper, and herb excesses to her circle of friends.  Along with proper watering, making the plant bed is probably the most important part of the success.

I really like this interpretation of the bed-making instruction.  Before you sow, literally or figuratively, you make sure to make the right conditions for your efforts to have a chance to succeed.  Outside of yard work, sowing may be like starting relationships.  Transactional relationships are fine – when they are understood by both sides as such.  But fake interest or a win-lose mindset doesn’t build trust, and would you really want to do business with somebody you don’t trust?  Would they help you if they don’t trust you?  Would you be friends with somebody you don’t trust?

What markers do you use to discern if somebody is worthy of a deeper relationship?

How do you behave in those same areas?  Are you somebody with whom you would want to have this relationship?  If not, what will it take to be that person?  Does anything stop you from being that way now?  Honestly, there are times I am not sure why I should want me in my circle.  Then I remind myself of my values and try again to live by them.

If our relationship invitation is sowing, and watering is building and maintaining the relationship, what comes before that – the bed-making?

What if the bed-making is to make ourselves ready for having honest trust-building relationships?  That would include the hard work of growing in self-belonging.  Can we even have (or authentically display) sincere interest in another person if we wear a mask, we hope they will not see through? if we shape-shift with every interaction to “fit in”? if all the time our primary concern is not the other person but whether we are safe here, now?

This is not asked from an intent to dis anybody – not feeling safe is a terrible situation to be in; feeling out of belonging is very sad and lonely.  Yet how much of this is what we ourselves bring to the situation? How much is the perspective through which we see the world? [1]  As Einstein said: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”  It changes everything else.

I know I quote my father way too often. On this topic, he would say two things:

The first, a bit harsh as I heard it as a child but finding it to be true now having more life experience, was “If you don’t love yourself, why do you expect anybody else will?”  Back when I was a kid, I thought self-love equaled self-centeredness, but it is about accepting who we are while striving to become more of what we wish to be.  See ourselves as worth investing the effort in.  See the people we love as worthy of making the effort for, that they may have the best version of us to love back.  The people who do love us want to help us to become more of what we wish to be.  I love only imperfect people – they are the only ones I know.  Fortunately, we don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love.  And everybody needs grace – also for and from themselves.

Dad’s second point might have been that he “was too lazy to lie”.  If he lied, he had to remember what he had told this person or that person, so sticking to the truth was a simple and way more efficient option.  More effective for building trust, too, I would think.

Do make your bed.  You have to lie in it.

Pun not intended.

[1] Across the many labels, we can stick on people, we can rarely guess what people not bearing our own labels have experienced, and their experiences are as valid as ours. Even when these experiences differ from what we thought was true – and even if hearing about this different reality makes us uncomfortable because we may have been part of their problem.  We don’t have to agree with their conclusion to show empathy for how their story influences them.