A few weeks ago, Noah and I were having a conversation that, at its core, was about coming up with maxims to live by. We both quickly threw out “do the next right thing,” which has existed for a long time — I think it’s actually an Alcoholics Anonymous phrase — but that Noah learned from his mom and passed on to me. I also suggested “make your bed.” I’ve always been a big proponent of making my bed. Part of it comes from my parents, who required it of me every morning. Part of it comes from an idea ingrained into the military, notably memorialized in a commencement speech by Admiral William McRaven. In it, he says: “If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”
Anyway. A combination of those two maxims wormed its way into my head, and it goes like this: “make your bed, and then do the next right thing.” And that stuck with me for the roller coaster of the last few weeks before trail.
I tend to suffer from an overwhelming sense of paralysis when I have too many things to do and all of them feel daunting or difficult to start, or simply when I’m tired and can’t find the motivation to start checking boxes. The solution, of course, is to do one thing at a time until they’re done. But nothing has ever gotten through to me like “Make your bed, and then do the next right thing.” When I had to move out of my apartment, move my stuff into my parent’s basement, wrap up my casework for my leave of absence, pack for the trail, and say my goodbyes? It all started with making my bed. When my bed was made, I was already in the flow of tasks, and I could use the bed space for whatever I needed to do.
For Day 2 on trail — my first real day, since I turned Day 1 into a day hike and slept back at the Airbnb with Noah — I had planned to hike 14 miles. At about 13.1, I decided that I simply could not hike another step. My shoulders hurt, my motivation was low, and I decided that 13 miles was enough. An unmarked, dispersed campsite appeared out of nowhere just steps from the trail, and I would go no further. I dropped my stuff on the ground next to a tree and was immediately hit by a wave of tiredness and a deep desire to be home. (I have a name for this feeling now! I call it “Camp Despair.”) Unlike coming home to an apartment, when you get to camp, there is still so much left to do that it feels nearly insurmountable. You have to set up and stake out your tent, inflate your sleeping pad, set out your sleeping bag, unpack enough to find warmer layers, filter water, use the filtered water to make dinner, clean up from dinner, seal up all food items in your bear can and place them 70 large steps away from camp so as not to attract bears, brush your teeth, remember that the toothpaste is supposed to go in bear can, retrieve the bear can, place the toothpaste inside, put the bear can away again, pee in the woods, and wriggle into your sleeping bag , which will not stop sliding around the tent floor. After hiking for eight hours. When I put it that way, it kind of justifies the feeling of despair, right?
Truly, the only way to get over Camp Despair is to make your bed, and then do the next right thing. If you make dinner first, you’ll get hit by the Big Sleepy immediately afterward and will be devastated that you don’t have a tent or bed to get into. To make your bed, you have to set up your tent first (it’s like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie), but then you’ve at least accomplished the worst of the chores. Also, you’ve simultaneously set up your reward for completing the rest of the chores later — a soft bed. In the morning, it’s the same. Except that instead of making your bed, you’re unmaking it and packing it up. But doing the next right thing? That will always remain the same.
That same night, a thunderstorm hit at 4am. I lay awake full of worry — worry that my rain fly would leak, that I’d somehow get hit by lightning (which was flashing almost simultaneously with the roll of thunder), or that I would get no sleep and have a hard time the following day. None of those turned out to be true. What did happen, of course, was that I woke up to a soaking wet rain fly and ground sheet, and had to pack up in the drizzle. Daunted as I was, I knew exactly what to start with. Unmaking my bed, obviously. And then the next right thing: breakfast. I know nothing is that serious. It’s just camp chores. I will likely do it every night, in some way or another, for the remainder of my 150 or so nights on trail. But it’s a good framework, and I will also likely continue to do it for the rest of my life off trail.
So here’s to making your bed, and then doing the next right thing.
