Shine Your Damn Shoes
By Chief Chuck
Last week I tweeted that I can teach you about life by teaching you to shine your shoes. Can I? Sure I can, and if I don’t, you’ll at least have shiny shoes. It occurred to me last week while ironing dress shirts for work that performing what I used to consider a mindless activity is actually meditative and maybe not so mindless after all.
The military used to be all about shined shoes, boots, dress shoes, buttons, insignia...you name it. If it moves, salute it, if it doesn’t move, paint or shine it. One of the very first things you learn in boot camp is how to shine your shoes properly. It is a process. It is a procedure. You are expected to shine your shoes the same way everyday. Every one of you in your platoon. By the book.
Why? What difference does it make you ask? Isn’t it more important to just have shiny shoes, regardless of how you get there? No. That’s the easy way and the easy answer. It is about the attention to detail, the routine of doing the same thing the same way until it becomes automatic. Just like performing under the stress of combat.
Shining our shoes became communal. When there are 50-60 dudes living in one giant room, sure, everything’s communal. Pooping is even communal. But at the end of a long day of marching, training and sweating and being yelled at, night time was preparing for the next day. But as you all sat shining boots, you made lifetime friends, some lifetimes longer than others. It was a time of peace and funny conversations, bullshitting and forming together as a team.
Then there was the process itself. Brushing the boots first to clean the dirt and dust. The rhythmic ‘swish swish’ of 50 Kiwi shoe brushes. Then, light the black shoe polish on fire a bit (with a regulation Zippo) to soften it, wrapping an old t-shirt around the index and middle finger, swirling on the liquid wax and begin to polish the boot. Circles and circles. Over and over. Until it starts to shine a bit.
Then it’s a dip in water or for old school folks..spit..and polish, polish. At first, this takes hours. Later, after many shines, you become faster and better at it. Just like with anything you start out doing for the first time. Playing guitar, shooting a weapon, writing good emails…
When you finally get finished, the boots are shining and look like black mirrors. You feel good about your work, despite bitching about having to do it. The next morning, you look sharp. Drill sergeant passes, looks down, grunts and moves on. What?? No praise? No acknowledgement of that hard work? No pat on the back? Nah, sunshine, just another day. You met expectations. Yippee for you, Cupcake.
Do you see how something as simple as shining your shoes can show you all kinds of lessons about life, discipline, effort, results and focus? If not, consider this from my good friend Huntsman: “My Dad told me that shining shoes is “stillness in motion”. You’re in such perfect memory mode that your body moves while your mind remains at rest. And that is what opens flashes of insight, because your filters and biases are also at rest.”
Shine your damn shoes.
Semper Fortis
PS Want to connect with me directly? Follow me on Twitter @charleswhiskey
If you enjoyed this, then be sure to check out Chief Chuck’s other posts.
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The picture above is a headstone. A grave marker. Whose name is on it? When were they born? When did they die? Where were they from, what did they do? You can’t tell, can you? It’s worn, faded, dirty and well, old.
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