Start by Making Your Bed

“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” Naval Admiral William H. McRaven.

Naval Admiral William H. McRaven recently gave a graduation speech at the University of Texas at Austin. It was fabulous and has gone viral on YouTube. You really should check it out. He is a Navy Seal and gave a list of ten things he learned from his Seal training that anyone can do if they want to change the world.

The very first one, gave me pause. It made me smile and made me teary at the same time. The very first suggestion was, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”

My granddaddy was a dictator when in came to bed making. When he came upstairs in the mornings, our beds had better be made. It didn’t matter whether or not we were on school break either. Every now and then if we were running late for school and didn’t have time to make them, (a very rare occurrence),  he had us make them when we got home. I would try to reason with him that I was going to be getting back in it soon, to no avail. The bed had to be made.

I never understood his reasoning, but when I went away to college, I made my bed every morning and found myself quite annoyed when my roommate did not. I insist that my own children make their beds everyday. I don’t know why; I guess because that’s the way I was raised.

Admiral McRaven says that making your bed is accomplishing a task first thing in the morning and accomplishing one, will lead to another. I never thought about it that way, but that makes sense to me. Maybe just getting up and actually doing something productive leads to being productive all day. He also says that making your bed will reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

Now that’s a huge concept from simply making a bed, but one that we should all probably spend a little more time considering. Jesus tells us in Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

It’s the same concept. The little things matter. They always have. They matter to God, so they should matter to us. Small tasks from making your bed to saying good morning to your co-workers when you walk by them in the office. Small gestures and small tasks can make a huge difference in the world around us.

I never thought about what granddaddy was trying to teach me, but I passed it on to my kids. There are a million ways to make a difference in the world. Maybe if we begin each day with a prayer as we make the bed, our entire perspective may change. Maybe if we passed that idea on to our children, they will pass it on too.

We have to start somewhere and making the bed seems as good a place as any to me. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂