I have a friend who, from time to time, brings a smile to my face with her way of reminding her children that making their bed is “for winners.” And yes, there are important reasons to make your bed every morning!
Why is it good to make your bed?
For starters, making your bed helps the room look tidier, conveys a sense of accomplishment, and can help reduce stress, and boost self-esteem. In addition, our everyday life is made up of seemingly unremarkable situations, such as making or not making the bed, which nonetheless contribute to sanctifying ourselves and avoiding a mediocre or meaningless life. They are moments when faith gives a special dignity and a certain meaning to each of our simplest acts, rescuing them from their possible irrelevance.
But what else is important about making the bed? Making your bed denotes strength, discipline, and self-control. It helps us pay attention to details, to order, to doing things well. It’s a very simple task, but it is capable of making both the 3-year-old and the 90-year-old feel proud.
As St. Thomas told us, for there to be virtue “two things must be taken into account: what is done and how it is done.” And this is where, as my friend said, making the bed is truly for winners. Because both adults and young people, in the minutes required for that task, are beating their laziness and idleness. We’re facing down our laziness. It’s at that moment when we might lack motivation when the transcendent comes into play and the thought that we can “do it for love” begins to resonate in our heads.
A challenge
As my friend’s children said to her, “But Mom, what does the bed matter?”
Making your bed is one of the many, many areas of daily life that are given to us for our spiritual growth. Obeying mom or overcoming one’s own laziness out of love becomes an almost heroic gesture, despite its apparent triviality. In fact, when we do things out of love, there are no small things: everything in life, even making the bed, is something big.
Surely many of the saints, like us, found it difficult to “make their beds.” But they were all able to discover that none of us is lacking in occasions to demonstrate the love of God through simple and seemingly insignificant daily actions.
Making your bed will surely not take more than 5 minutes. It’s a precious way to offer the day, to overcome certain weaknesses of character, and to successfully complete the first task of the day.
If you find it difficult, use it as a moment of prayer, an offering that will help you to thank God and prepare you to face in the best possible way all the actions that you will need to perform during the day. Because as my friend used to say: making the bed is for winners. And which team do you want to be on?
And today we celebrate...