I thought my father was a bubble or two off center because he was obsessed about never being late. He believed the only way to be on time was to arrive somewhere 10 minutes early.
The bank opens at 9 a.m., so be at the door no later than 8:50. Church starts at 10 a.m. so be in your pew no later than 9:50. For him, being early was a vital virtue.
The sole exception was when we were invited out for dinner. If it was at a restaurant at 6 p.m., we were there at least 15 minutes early so we didn’t keep the others waiting. We stood or sat near the host/hostess station until everyone else arrived.
It took Mother years to train him that an invitation to dinner at someone’s house or our home at 6 meant ringing the doorbell no more than 5 to 10 minutes after the hour. He went along with it, never thinking it was right, but it was just easier that way.
Even so, we arrived early so he could take another look at the windshield wipers or, in the winter, take pleasure in kicking the snow and ice that built up in the wheel well. He found great satisfaction when a small glacier came loose and hit the cement.
For a long time I thought he was peculiar, odd and set in his ways. Of course, all children think that of their parents.
Then I came to realize he was upholding a Minnesota tradition: To be on time one must arrive about 10 minutes early. To arrive at the appointed hour and minute is to be late, and to be late is not nice. To be a true Minnesotan, one must always strive to be nice.
Like most old geezers, I have become increasingly like my father. Minnesota Nice seems ingrained in my DNA, and I too now would rather be early than late, as the latter seems rude and selfish.
Implied in this form of Minnesota Nice is that being late steals time from others. They lose a few minutes of their life they will never get back, we might spike their anxiety and even have a hand in their early death. How nice would that be?
This also includes deadlines. “I love deadlines,” said writer Douglas Adams. “I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
Thanks to Father, I have never been tempted to do that. The absolute deadline for Commercial Record columns is before noon on Monday. All right, it is noon that day, but to be on time would mean being late.
If we don’t get our pieces to HQ, the crew cannot lay out the papers properly on Tuesday, get them to the printers and deliver them to vendors and the post office.
Psychologists who study why people procrastinate generally agree it’s because they do not place enough value in themselves. They sabotage their ambitions because they don’t believe they deserve the good things in life.
People confident in themselves are more likely to pop out of bed in the morning and get on with the tasks at hand.
For a few decades, I thought retirement would be wonderful. No more having to get up in the wee hours to work on a sermon or some other project. No more having to watch the clock so I would be somewhere at the right time, i.e. early.
Retired, I could sleep-in, not waste time applying a brush full of shaving soap to my face and scrape off the stubble.
I tried it briefly and didn’t like it. At the end of the day, I had little to show for my waking hours and was haunted knowing the clock was steadily ticking down to the deadline when I’d fall off my perch.
“Putting things off,” said the stoic philosopher Seneca said, “is the greatest waste of life. It snatches away each day and denies us the present by promising the future.”
I won’t yield to procrastination either.
“Never put off to tomorrow,” a friend told me, “what you can do on overtime pay today.” That appeals to me because, financially or not, it is always profitable. Time is the most valuable thing we can spend, it’s said.
The real challenge to being on time is starting to create that habit. Like all of us, Charles Schwab had a long list of things to do each day. He would look at it, do the top six priorities first and realized his productivity increased and he was happier as well.
We can manage six things a day more easily than a list of 20, and the sense of accomplishment boosts morale.
I see no reason to wait till Jan. 1 to make this a New Year’s Resolution. Getting started now is the best Christmas gift we can give to ourselves and others will benefit from it too.
