Bed, Bath and Beyond

Before beginning, I must make this disclaimer: Nowhere in this post will I be talking about the store chain referenced by the title.  I will not be saying a word about home decor, matching bath towels to bed linens, or how to find the perfect scented candle.  This post is about life.

I was getting ready for bed last night — well, in truth I was sitting at my computer after teaching one of my online classes for AnimSchool — and had a few thoughts buzzing through my head.  While staring at my Twitter feed trying to decide if those thoughts were worth sharing, four words shoved their way to the front:

Bed, Bath and Beyond

Um….okay.  Where did that come from?  I can’t remember if I’d seen someone else comment about that store, or if my mind was just focused on my need to get to bed, but there it was.  So…now what?  Being the lover of words that I am, I tried looking at them a little differently, and it wasn’t long before this epiphany hit me:

It isn’t just a store name. It’s a set of tips for living.

Ooohh…now things are getting interesting!  “Do tell!” I said to my head.  It told what it could in its sleepy state, and I dutifully expounded on the thought…well, at least as much as I could in 140 characters.  I figured that was that, so I promptly shut things down and went to bed.

But it didn’t end there.

While exercising this morning, the thought came back.  This time the potential meaning of each of the key words in that title was more fully formed, and the collective concept much more inspiring.

Bed

I think it’s safe to say that most of us have, at one time or another, professed a deep love for sleep.  (One of my former animation co-workers, John Berry, has an uncanny way with words, and once said that he was “gonna munch on sleep like a champion.”)  But how often do we wake up in the morning feeling nearly as tired as when we went to bed, saying that we don’t feel “well-rested”?  That should set off alarm bells in our minds.  Are we simply sleeping, or are we truly giving our bodies sufficient rest?

One article that I found on the subject of sleep lists several things that are affected by our sleep habits, including learning and memory, metabolism and weight, safety, mood, cardiovascular health, and disease.  As a human, I should be concerned about anything that would affect any of those parts of my life.  As a freelance professional, I should also be aware that affecting those things in a negative way will affect my work as well.

It’s also important to note that the need for appropriate rest goes beyond the idea of sleeping in a bed once a day.  There are other ways that we can — and should — be resting on a regular basis.  For example, one of the things that I do to help support my creative work as a performing artist is to develop software.  I don’t have a huge workload in that area, but there’s enough that needs to be done that I’m regularly spending hours at my computer working on code.  As a part of that effort, I need to take periodic breaks to rest my eyes, stretch my limbs, etc.  While writing this post, even, I began feeling some tension in my neck and shoulders, so I stepped away for a few minutes to relax and stretch.  If I don’t take those breaks, I definitely feel it, and that fatigue that I feel consequently affects all of the other work that I do.

Bottom line: if I want to stay on top of my game, I need to ensure that I’m getting enough rest, both at night, and during my other activities.

Bath

In my original Twitter post about this concept, I simply wrote, “get up and take a bath.”  In the extended dance remix that came to mind this morning, the word reminded me of the larger principle of preparation.

One of the things that I am guilty of doing sometimes is diving straight into a task without adequate preparation.  Sadly, that even applies to my daily work as a creative freelancer.  Many are the days when I have risen, taken care of the morning critter chores on our little farming, downed a hasty bowl of cold cereal, and shuffled directly to my techno-cave to start doing my “work” without even a thought as to what work I wanted/needed to do that day.  Looking back later in the day (often in response to my wife asking me what I’ve been doing), I’ve often felt like it’s all been a pile of semi-productive mush.  I genuinely wanted to get more things done, but because I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t make solid headway on much of anything.

Several quotes come to mind about the importance of preparation:

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Prepare and prevent instead of repair and repent.”
— Unknown

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
— Alexander Graham Bell

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.”
— Robert H. Schuller

While preparation is the core principle that was ultimately brought to mind by the word “bath,” I feel that there’s also something to be said for actually taking a bath (or shower) every day.  In the description of my frequent daily routine above, I didn’t say anything about bathing.  Sadly, that wasn’t just because I was leaving out certain details in the interest of brevity.  One of the “luxuries” of doing a large chunk of my work from home is that I can — and often do — skip that step, using the self-justification that a) I’m not planning on leaving the house, and b) I can get to work sooner.  However, I’m beginning to see the error of my ways, which is why this particular B-word in the trio is like rubbing salt on the head wound I received while pounding fence posts the other day.

I don’t know whether or not I was aware of this previously, but I’m firmly convinced now that there is something beneficial to the morning bath/shower beyond the literal act of cleaning the physical body.  Being physically clean is important for a variety of health reasons, of course, but I believe that there’s a subconscious cleaning/renewing/refreshing that happens at the same time, and that it helps us to prepare for the day ahead.  Looking back at the recent past, I believe that I was more effective on the days when I took the time to include that step in my morning routine compared to the days when I didn’t.  As a result, I’m determined to change that (currently-bad) habit, and to be more diligent about other forms of preparation as well.

Beyond

Of the three words being discussed here, this one is probably the most open-ended in terms of its implications.  In my post last night, I wrote that we should “go beyond what [we] did yesterday.”  But what exactly does that mean?  The perfectionist in me quickly shouts that everything should be better, but I’ve learned through sad experience that the “make everything better” approach is neither efficient nor healthy.  It’s far better to pick a few specific things that need attention, and then make specific plans to improve in those areas (which reinforces the planning/preparation tip above).

When it comes down to it, this word reminds me of the importance of pushing beyond current boundaries, and of not becoming complacent.  It’s so easy to get into a certain set of habits and patterns and never change them, or to achieve a certain level of skill or knowledge and never go farther.  It’s easy to succumb to the attitude of doing only what’s “good enough.”  To stay in place requires no effort, while it takes a concerted effort to make change, and a great amount of effort to make great change.  Even if our efforts don’t end up taking us “beyond”, we’ll be rewarded in other ways for the mere fact that we made the effort.

I’m reminded of the famous quote from Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story:  “To infinity…and beyond!”  When you think about it logically, it doesn’t make sense at first.  Something that is infinite has no end, so you can’t go beyond it, right?  While that’s true, I believe that it’s really meant to serve as an inspiration for us to never stop dreaming, and never stop pushing.  We should be striving not only to achieve lofty — and even seemingly-impossible — goals, but to go beyond them.

If you want a further dose of inspiration, fellow voice talent Marc Scott recently wrote a great post about this very subject, and I highly recommend reading it.

So when it comes down to interpreting “Bed, Bath and Beyond” as a set of life tips, I think that it means to rest, prepare, and push.  Rest so that you can have the health and energy that you need to do your best work, prepare for that work, and then push yourself to not only achieve your goals, but to go beyond them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to run to the store.  My “cave” is smelling a bit ripe.  Maybe a scented candle would do the trick…