On Self-Help and Making the Bed

Every day, I make the bed.

It’s not a particularly onerous task and it can even be quite a pleasant one if seen in the right way, but I always feel slightly irritated by having to do it. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

There’s a self-help book called Make Your Bed and I occasionally think about reading it. I’ve really had my fill of self-help though. While it’s sometimes enlightening, one only needs so much enlightenment.

I’d rather read novels. I see fiction as something (top-tier life) and non-fiction as about something (second-tier life), self-help being almost a third tier since it’s just about fine-tuning reality instead of actually being an event in reality.

I have no idea what the Make Your Bed book is about, but I assume it tells you to make your bed because making your bed (a) doesn’t take very long, (b) makes a big difference to the vibe of where you live, (c) it actually quite a pleasant and mindful task you allow it to be one, and (d) acts as a mild physical warm-up for doing other things. I assume it is a metaphor for (a) tasks seldom being as bad as you imagine, (b) choosing your battles, (c) seeing things different ways, and (d) how activity can snowball once you’ve begun.

I will never look up that book to find what it’s really about. I have not read the review I linked to above. If you’ve read it though, tell me in the comments how right or wrong I am.

Anyway, those are some of the things I think about when making the bed. But why the slight sense of irritation at having to do it?

There’s another self-help book on the market at the moment with an ‘escape’ theme, just right for us to review in the next New Escapologist. I can’t be bothered though, so I asked someone else to do it for me. Thanks, Arie!

Arie came through today with his review and, among other things, it describes a way to overcome stress. You want to be “there,” when in fact you’re “here” is the explanation. Once you’ve accepted that, you’re on your way to overcoming stress.

Procrastinating slightly from making the bed this morning, I considered this. Why don’t I want to make the bed? It’s because I find it slightly stressful. Why do I find it slightly stressful when everything about making the bed is actually pretty good? It’s because I want to be “there” (a tidy world where the bed is made) instead of “here” (a messy world where the bed is unmade) and I can’t get “there” quickly enough.

Once I’d understood that, I asked myself why it’s so undesirable to live “here” in the messy world. It’s not so undesirable really. So I got breakfast and made the bed later instead. I did not feel the stress of the “make the bed” task hanging over me as I ate my breakfast. It works!

And I didn’t even have to read a self-help book. Though admittedly I had a unique way of learning from it anyway. Sorry Arie.

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New Escapologist Issue 16 is available now in print and digital formats.