I’m an expert at being late.  What I mean is that I can have plenty of time to get somewhere and meet someone but I have a real ability to do something that will make me late – wheather it’s just one more website that needs to be looked at, one more page of a book I’m reading, or a mango that’s needs to be eaten before I leave.

It’s not a conscious thing, well, until now that is.  I certainly don’t make myself late on purpose, or because I don’t value the other person’s time.  That’s what I thought anyway.  But in the last 24 hours I’ve been thinking that to be so ‘loose’ with my timing, I really am being disrespectful to that person, in my case, without realising it.  I guess it’s partly because I don’t really worry too much when someone is late for an appointment with me, I just tend to be a bit laid back sometimes and don’t like getting worked up about things.  But what does that say about how I value my own time?

If you ask any of my friends, right from my early school days up to present day ones and all in between they’ll testify to my lateness and are probably nodding their heads in agreement as they read this.  Thinking back I’ve actually had people go places without me (they’ll meet me there!) because they don’t want to be late.  And I’ve never really acknowledged it as a real problem.  My friend Dean, who I’ve known since the first day of infant school and had walked to school with for most of my teenage years, started to walk without me because of exactly that reason – I would make him late!

It makes me a bit sad to think of it but it also makes me happy to have the realisation that it’s something I can easily work on.  You see, it’s about seeing the bigger picture.  Here’s an example; In the past I have told people I was going to visit them, driving from where I was at the time – about a 10 minute drive.  As I went round I thought I’d pop into Tesco to pick up a couple of bits and pieces, which turned into a few more bits and pieces, about 30 minutes worth!  When I got round there, they had been waiting for me and had expected me 30 minutes ago.  I didn’t see that as a problem because I just hadn’t thought of the possibilities, "I need to be there at the time I said incase they’ve gone home especially to meet me" or, "they may have limited time to be with me due a later appointment".  But I just didn’t used to think about things like that, I never saw the bigger picture.

Consequently, when people tell me about my lateness I play the victim and never saw it as my fault.  It was always something beyond my control.  This is clearly not true and completely disempowering but it was a great lie to tell myself to justify things in my own mind.  No more!!!

So I’m going forward into the world today with my new realisation, thinking and being acutely aware of how much time I need for things.  Also being aware of others’ time more than my own and making a statement to them to show that I do respect them.

Karen and I had friends round on Sunday night to play Cashflow 101 whilst enjoying pizza leftover from her weekend class.  Paul mentioned a book to me called The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle that talks about being present in the moment.  Perhaps this will help me, it dropped through my door this morning so we’ll see.