Punctuality Is A Virtue

First of all. I wanna say Happy Birthday to my Mom! I love you. I know it’s ur first bday w/out dad. I hope us chatting tonight made your bday a little less sad and kept your mind off of missing him.

Act 168:

“It’s never too late… To Be On Time

It’s a compliment to others. A chance to observe. To eliminate pressure. To calm down. To organize. To improve your chances of success.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “Punctuality is the politeness of kings.” ~ Proverb

Being punctual has always been important to me. Punctuality is not just about being on time. It’s about showing respect. If you’ve stated that you’re going to be somewhere at a specific time, then you should be there when you say you will. I know living in LA means that traffic gets in the way and you sometimes can’t make it on time, but there’s a difference between being late because of traffic and using traffic as your excuse for not leaving on time.

As a Filipino, I grew up in a culture where there is a such a thing as “Filipino Time”. This is just the accepted practice for being late to EVERYTHING. Parties. Events. Showers. Weddings. Even Church. It annoys the crap out of me. It is so bad with some of my relatives that we tell them that the party starts 2 hours earlier just so they get there on time. I remember going to a wedding or rehearsal where the invitation said “You must be on AMERICAN time. Not FILIPINO time. The Priest will not wait”. I hate hate hate Filipino time. I think it sucks that as a culture it is accepted that everyone is late and it’s ok. I think it’s rude and disrespectful, but I’ve learned to live with it and I try not to let it get to me.

My immediate family wasn’t that bad about it. Everyone in my immediate family is on time or early except for my mom. My dad taught me that we should try to be everywhere 15 min early and that it’s always better to wait for someone than have them wait for you. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate having people wait for me. There’s two things that I hate the most, being lost and being late. The worst thing that could happen to me is being late because I got lost. This is when I get the most stressed and most annoyed/aggravated and grumpy… but I digress..

I remember that if we ever left to go anywhere. My dad and I would be ready to go 15 min early. My bro would be ready just on time and my mom would be ready 5-15 min late. She got better as the years passed (I think it’s because she had three people nagging her instead of just one… haha). The other thing I remember was that the worst thing we could do when she was running late is rush her. She would inevitably leave something at the house and we’d have double back. So, it was best to just accept the fact that we were going to be 15 min late and not rush her or end up being 30-45 min late, because we had to go back for the jello we were supposed to bring for the potluck. I think that towards the end, we just started telling her that we needed to leave 15 min earlier than we really needed to. That way we would leave on time. Haha

As for me, I still am about 10-15 min early for stuff. I’m glad my dad instilled that habit in my brain. To help this out (because I’m always usually running late). I usually set my clocks and watches fast. My alarm clock and watch are 10 min fast. My clock in the car is 15 min fast. I do this, because I do have that Filipino gene in me and I set the clocks early to counteract that need to be late.

I went to WikiHow and looked up How To Be Punctual. I liked what it said.

• Acknowledge that you are a person who is having a hard time being punctual.

• Be conscious of the time.

• Wake up when you're supposed to wake up.

• Commit yourself to being 15 minutes early for everything

• Bring something you can read in short segments almost everywhere you go.

• Re-examine how long your daily tasks really take.

• Watch yourself for a few days to see where you often waste the most time.

• Make a note of where you should be in regards to time

• Keep organized.

• Plan ahead.

• Go to sleep on time

• Check the traffic before you leave.

• Make appointments at exact, perhaps seemingly overprecise times.

• Think of departure time versus arrival time.

I hate being late, because I don’t like to have to make people wait for me. I try to be early or on time for everything. I’m that annoying person who shows up to a party actually on time. Some hosts hate that, but don’t say 6pm if you really meant 7pm. Haha. The only caveat I will make to being late is this. If you’re gonna be late, then at least have the courtesy to let the party that is waiting (or will be waiting) for you know about your tardiness. Those are my thoughts on punctuality. What are yours?