Chapter 1 / Make Your Bed By Admiral William H McRaven

Posted in 2021!

I was reading “Make your bed” by Admiral William H McRaven today and realized that making you bed should be the 1st task that we do when we wake up in the morning. It gives a sense of pride completing the task, however the task may be small. It shows discipline, it shows to the outside world of who we are, it shows that we are trained as ground soldiers to give attention to even smallest detail that we carry around us. I remember, cabin cupboard inspection was the most irritating one during OTA days, we used to hate such things during training, but again, there have been logic behind implementing such things, that if we can’t ensure professionalism of how we stay, how we carry ourselves, how we will instill the sense of discipline among the subordinates, how they can trust on someone who does not act and just orders. A leader is someone who believes in actions and not in mere words. Even, when the military stays in extreme conditions, if we talk of Indian Army, which operates from -50 degree terrain (Siachen) to +50 degree terrain (Rajasthan), the officers and the ground soldiers are expected to make their bed, it’s not about inspections, it’s about self discipline and theory of atomic habits which build our personality as a better human being, every single day. In military, sometimes it’s quite lonely and stressful for those who operate in those terrains and guard our borders so that we can sleep peacefully at night. If they can make their bed as their 1st task in hand in the morning, why can’t we do that? It gives solace, gives a motivation to do more in a day, it gives sense of structured life amidst the chaos, it gives us strength and satisfaction, which fuels us till the completion of the day. I remember, we were instructed to make our bed perfectly by making a knot of the bed-sheet corners under the mattress, and to keep the blanket by making it three folds in a perfect rectangle, the pillow in a perfect sync with such set-up - and all these, while we were hospitalized for our injuries in Military Hospital.If not alone, somebody would help, but making a bed used to be a routine like we shit, shave, brush (SSB) daily!

Small small things, but the impact stays for whole life, and the impact makes us different from the crowd. As they say, we train at OTA for the shortest duration among all military academies, but it makes us a gentleman for life. Training never goes on waste and it never will.

#MakeYourBed