The Unmade Bed and the Fall of Civilization

I didn't make my bed, and as I drove away from home, I remembered it and felt a pang of guilt. It's not the end of the world, I rationalized. How many people actually take the time to make their beds, anyway? I haven't always been good about it, it's just that I realized I like that small spot of order in an otherwise chaotic, uncontrollable world. I might not be able to predict the course of my morning commute, but at least my bedcovers are smooth and inviting when I finally return home.

My mind being what it is, the rest of the ride to work was occupied with wondering just how many people do bother to make their beds, and whether it could be considered an accurate indicator of the state of society. Are made beds, like men's hats and women's gloves, a sign of a more mannerly and refined time that has passed us by? I could conduct a poll, but the very tools I'd use to promote such a thing would bias the results. I know, for instance, that none of my children make their beds every day. It's not something I've emphasized to them, unlike 'brush your teeth! Use soap in the shower! and Drink more water!' as I try to raise them from child barbarians into productive members of society. I'm a lax mother. I could have stood over them insisting they square their corners, and scrub the floors, and polish their shoes, but... I'm not even sure they know how to iron. I do - I learned in Civil Air Patrol so I could maintain my uniform. It was a point of pride. And like the bed-making, I slowly learned that it was a little thing I could do that would make me feel inordinately better.

Because in the scheme of things, the made bed is a tiny speck of insignificance. A matter of moments every day in a lifetime adds up to nothing much comparative to the moments that really matter: the birth of a child, a marriage ceremony, a death. So many moments in life are significant, the hinges in time that alter the course of our lives. Not making the bed. There's no reason at all I should fret over it. I shouldn't - and didn't  - turn back and make it up on a work morning. But is it a symptom of something else?

When I was a very young mother, struggling to cope with managing babies, the house, and a running a business from home, I found the Flylady and her simple philosophy helped me come to grips with the seeming insurmountable task in front of me. Shine your sink, put on your shoes... you can do anything for fifteen minutes. And there were times I couldn't even manage that much. But I can do anything for five minutes. I can make my bed with a baby in one arm and a single free hand. I can use the tiny successes of a sink full  - not all! Just one sink at a time, on a bad day - cleaned to move me forward and keep me from miring in the slough of despond. Making my bed, like getting properly dressed, made me feel like I wasn't worthless and useless. Some days, that was all I had, and in the end, it was enough. Because it was a  baby step, until I learned to walk easy, then run, then...

Society seems to be slipping into the abyss of hopelessness. The First Reader rants at length about how when he was a boy, you couldn't wait to get out of your parents' house and be independent. Presumably, to no longer be required to make your bed every morning - no, you could choose to make it, or not. But now, he points out based on what we see around us, most of the kids want to stay safe with Mommy and never leave home to have to worry about supporting themselves. I see it a lot in the comments online in various places, the sense that our world is too hard, and why put effort into it? Young people feel like the best is behind us. Mentally, they are wallowing in the unmade bed and saying 'why bother? I just get back in it tonight and sleep and mess it up again. What's the point?'

The point isn't that nothing stays clean for long. Housework is a constant in any life. Even if you never do it, you'll just die crushed under a stack of refuse in your own home. The point is that you took control, just a little, and you made your world better, just a little. And with the cumulative effort of bed making, and showing up to work on time, neat, and ready to put forth more effort, you can improve your life. And when you improve your life, you're strong enough to reach out a helping hand to a friend in need. Even if that's just going to their house when they're incapable and making sure the dishes got done today. And that web of friends helping friends is what strengthens society in general.

Civility. Formal politeness in behavior or speech. We focus a lot on the loss of manners, on incivility in speech. But how much do we look at the little behaviors that hold together what we consider to be civilization? Making our beds? Driving with caution and courtesy? Running a business ethically and legally? The small patterns of our life add beauty to the bigger tapestry of our total existence.