Is it important to be punctual?

Before getting around to the answer to this question, first, what does punctual mean? No, I assure you, it does not mean using question marks, commas and exclamation points in the right places. That is proper usage of punctuation and while that is a very important part of communication, it is not what this topic is about.

Being punctual simply means being on time for whatever engagement you have agreed to arrive for. On time, not two hours late, not thirty, ten  or even one minute late. You don't have to be an hour early, but if you are even one minute late, then you are not on time.

So, what? You're a few minutes late. Who cares right? It's not that big of a deal is it? Well that depends on what kind of message you are attempting to send the person you have the agreement with.

See, most people spend nearly the entirety of their life attempting to increase the amount of money that they have. We all have monthly bills and it seems like money is a limited commodity. It isn't though. Through creativity and hard work you can acquire more and more money. Even so,  there is more money in the world than you could ever hope to accumulate. And even if that weren't the case, we can always just print more. Money is nothing but a symbol.

Time on the other hand is different. There is an infinite amount of time, but not for each person. Each person only has so much time in their life. Whether you measure it in breaths, heartbeats or minutes, a person will only ever have so much. 

And every moment that a person wastes waiting for you to show up is a moment that they cannot get back no matter what happens. You can offer to "make it up" to them but there is truly nothing a person can offer that is equal to not having that time anymore. So, every single time that you are late, you are stealing time from someone else. You are stealing life, just like a vampire, but without the fangs.

Not only that, but you are telling the other person just how selfish you really are. You are telling them that you don't care about them and what matters to them. You are telling them that whatever it is that you are doing that is making you late is more important than whatever it is that they wanted to do.
Is being punctual important? I can't decide that for you. I guess it depends on what kind of message you want to send to others. For me it is important.  Theft of vitae + massive disrespect seems like a recipe for loneliness to me.

To be fair, life is complicated and it is not always possible to keep your commitments exactly as they are scheduled. But if one event is running over and keeping you from the next thing that you are supposed to be doing, common courtesy is to let the next person waiting on you know what is going on and whether or not to still expect you or if you need to reschedule, before you are late not after.

How is not important

In a lot of my previous work, I discuss plans and vision. There is talk, at length, about the fact that there needs to be a specific plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be. It is mentioned that without such a plan you are doomed to repeat all the things that you have done up until this point, for the rest of your life.

 From all this, one could easily get the impression that I believe you should be micromanaging every hour of every day and how it gets done. That how every single little thing gets done should be planned out ahead of time to the last detail. That there should be a vision of the way everything is done and that everything must be done exactly according to that vision.

This could not be farther from the truth. In fact such micro-management leads to insanity. It leads to a person becoming a completely obsessive control freak. Let me show you what I mean.

When I was younger, I lived under the thumb of my stepfather. From my perspective at least, I could never do anything to his satisfaction. And for a long time the things that happened simply boggled my mind.

He DID have an exact method by which he wanted everything done. My natural inclination was to do things by the simplest most efficient methods. We obviously grew up very differently because my way and his way were never the same. Doing things his way often seemed like the thing itself was a punishment. It would take longer, use more resources and quite often produce a lower quality result than the way that I was used to doing things.

I would do things my way. He would get mad at me and ask me why I didn't do things the way he wanted them done. But anything I responded with that wasn't me agreeing with him about his way being better either got ignored or got me disciplined.

Sometimes he would ask if I did what he asked and when I said I did, things seemed to be okay for awhile, until he queried whether or not I had done them his way. Then all hell would break loose. It was always his way or the highway, with no quarter given.

Let me ask you this. If your plan involves becoming the owner of a yacht, and a deceased relative wills you one just like the one you would have bought for yourself, should you sink it and go about getting the boat "your" way? Would you do that? Of course not. That would be insane.

You may intend to get wealthy by writing the next great American novel. But if what happens instead is a penny stock that you invested in suddenly becomes a Fortune 500 company and you find yourself swimming in money, why be upset about it? Just quit your job and enjoy the new freedom. If you want to, you can still invest the time and energy to become a bestselling author, but now you don't have to.

We all have a vision of the way things are going to be or the way they should be. But the bottom line is the result. As long as what you are doing is morally and legally sound, who cares how things get done? What matters is that it gets done and that you are happy with the quality of the result. Don't be attached to the image you have in your head of how things will happen. Because most of the time, that image is wrong.

Specific things do have to happen in order for your life to be the way you want it to be. Exactly how they happen is really not important. Let go of the image. Become attached to the results. Or as I like to say, function over form. Screw the details.

Why do I have to be responsible?

As you may or may not be aware, tomorrow(Friday) is the official opening night for The Amazing Spiderman 2. Early showings are available tonight in select locations and then tomorrow it will be in theaters practically everywhere.

This is a movie I want to see. Most, if not all, of the people that I live with want to see it as well. But left sort things out on their own most of us would not see it. It seems kind of weird to me for something that we are all so excited about, but I have seen it happen many times.

There is a new movie out just about every week that most of us are interested in. Due to our general day to day schedule, most movie watching is done either on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights. Though, if one of us does not speak up on Wednesday or Thursday about our plans for the weekend, people tend to make plans of their own to do other things. On Friday nights three of us work. On Saturdays we have a game that takes up most of the late afternoon and evening hours. On Sunday some of us do family related events with others outside of the house.

When a new movie comes out that I want to see, typically, I am the one that rallies the troops, sorts out the scheduling conflicts,  and the financial concerns. I know we all want to see the latest blockbuster, so I make it happen. If I didn't do it, we would go months without watching movies together. I know this to be true because I have tested it on multiple occasions.

See, I learned something a long time ago that I apply to my everyday life. It is a simple 20 letter phrase made up of ten two letter words.

If it is to be, it is up to me.

This literally means that if something is going to happen, it falls on me to make it happen. Or put a different way, if there is something that matters to me, I am responsible for handling all of the details involved in making it happen. If I fail to do so, then that thing is not as important to me as I may want to believe it is.

People often complain about how something doesn't get done if they don't do it and they wonder why they always have to be the one to make it happen. The simple answer is because they care more about making that thing happen than anyone else around them does. That thing either doesn't matter at all to others or just matters less to them than it does to the one that typically makes it happen. Whining, shouting and complaining about how much they don't like being the one to go through the effort of making it happen isn't fruitful.

Going out to eat and going to movies is pretty much what we do to socialize together, outside the house. It is very important to me. Others in the house say it is important to them as well, but obviously less so.

There is often quite a bit to the logistics of getting us all together at once, especially if we are meeting others that don't live in the house. It can be a lot of work. And I could whine, complain, get frustrated, angry or stressed about it. Or I could just not do it.

Instead I just remind myself that if it is to be, it is up to me. I don't get upset. I smile because I know that I am the one responsible for getting us all together, out of the house, laughing and having a good time. It is worth all the effort and trouble in the end, because I get to see the people I love enjoying themselves.

There are other tasks that are less rewarding that I apply the same logic to. If it is important enough for me to really care about the outcome,it is important enough for me to have a direct hand in guiding that outcome. And if it isn't important enough for me to take part in making it happen, I have no right to complain about the outcome being different than what I would have wanted.

Make this lesson your own and many everyday stresses will simply disappear.