I will apologize in
advance if this post offends you. I hope not. I’m writing it because I’ve lived
on both sides of this issue so I’m preaching to myself here. I have no particular individual in my mind other than myself. Feel free to add
your perspective in the comments or on my Facebook page.
I don’t remember if I heard it, read it, or saw it in one of
those random Facebook pictures. It struck me funny.
“Better to arrive
late than to arrive ugly.”
I may or may not have re-shared it. It sure got a laugh in
Cave Creek at the pottery shop when I said it to my husband as a quote that
should be on a plaque and a couple women in the store overheard me. They
laughed uproariously.
But is it true?
On a favorite blogger’s recent post I read
something that sounds like it. She’s just had a baby. Her fourth. A bit of a
“Surprise!” baby, but she was eager and ready and happy and fully immersed in
the new mothering of her little one, but wrote:
“Dashing into the shower in the early morning, determined to get dressed, put on make-up, brush my hair. I’m my father’s daughter: I believe in the small dignities to keep life steady in the midst of change and chaos. I hear his voice in my head, look good and feel good. So I make beds, I put clean clothes on everyone in my care, I empty the dishwasher, we eat at the table. Normal structures, normal routines, all around an extraordinary newness. It’s true, I do feel better but now there’s a houseful of people who all feel better when I feel better.”
Hold that thought while we go back to the triggering quote.
Is it truly “better to arrive late than to arrive ugly”? Will the people to
whom I’m arriving feel better because I feel good about how I look? Is that the
right measure?
I’ll give you a hint. It’s an unfair question.
It’s a false dichotomy, only two choices. The question
assumes you must pick one thing out of two bad options, when there are actually
many more options available. Let’s break it down a little further: The question
assumes that if I arrive on time, I will arrive unkempt. Or that I am ugly
unless I arrive late? Or that to truly do what is necessary to make myself
presentable, I must take so much time that I cannot possibly start it soon
enough to finish promptly and arrive punctually.
I’m sure you and I both have seen many beautiful people
arrive on time and behave quite graciously, so this isn’t about them. Let me
just pick this funny little quote apart. I’m going to seek names for what it
may be hiding. Is it a procrastinator’s excuse for tardiness? An insecure
person’s defense for being disrespectful of other people’s time? A comedian’s
means to a backhanded insult? Or just a sarcastic joke which I’m totally over-thinking?
A good friend of mine asks a pointed question when we hear,
read or say something which is initially funny or self deprecating that
eventually doesn’t sit quite right when you think about it or give it a sober
second glance.
She asks, “What’s the lie in that?”
Is there a lie in the phrase, “Better to arrive late than
ugly”?
Promptness and punctuality were emphasized from day one of
elementary school. We were graded on it. Businesses emphasize honoring their
open/close times and expect employees to be present and engaged in productive
work during their assigned work hours. Social etiquette refers to arriving
“fashionably late” as being no more than 8 minutes past the invitation time but
not arriving too early ahead of the specified start. Since social settings are
voluntary, do we give tacit approval to late arrival? If I were meeting the president
or the queen, would I think it’s better to arrive late for any reason?
So here’s the lie. Neither option is better.
Truth is, arriving late is ugly. I know there are occasional
times when circumstances cause unavoidable delay. But there was a point in my
life where I arrived late all the time. Even if I had committed to an event or
a rehearsal, I would often arrive late. I even wrote an essay on it, trying to
understand myself and this behavior I did not condone, condemning myself in
every possible way for not being able to move my consistent tardiness into
dependable punctuality.
I discussed the hypothesis that to arrive consistently late
might be done out of disrespect. I used terms like arrogant and inconsiderate.
Or perhaps a passive-aggressive act to
exert power by one who felt an obligation to attend an event but doesn’t really
want to be there. Tardiness can give the self-centered
impression that what I am doing now is more important or more interesting than
what you want to do at your start time. Or perhaps a narcissist likes arriving late and having everyone notice me when I
get there. Even bad attention is better than no attention, right?
Wrong.
If we give the tardies the benefit of the doubt, perhaps
they just attract roadblocks. I recently decided to attend my nephew’s band
concert in an unfamiliar city. The GPS said ETA was 12 minutes, but that didn’t
take into consideration it was rush hour and the GPS said to go north instead
of south and the traffic in both directions was at a standstill. Exiting on a
side road, we pulled over and it took a few minutes to reassess an alternate
route that didn’t include the freeway. We were fine. Calm. Not worried because we
still had lots of time, so we stopped for coffee at McDonalds. The clerk said
they were brewing a fresh pot and it would be three minutes – no problem, we
went to the washroom and returned, waiting while they served the two people now
in line.
You know this isn’t going to turn out well, already, don’t
you?
The second person was ordering for an entire basketball
team, apparently, then didn’t have quite the right amount and had to make
alterations to the order. When we finally stepped up to get our coffee order
processed (we didn’t use the drive thru because we did need to use the
facilities) and while she was taking our simple “two large black coffees”
order, the clerk stopped and answered an interruption from the previous woman,
then a second question from another patron who wanted more dipping sauce for
his chicken fingers and we listened to the entire policy explanation as to why
they were going to charge him $.16 for each one in addition to what’s given
with his order and their warning to him about not being verbally profane or
abusive with his language. Once our coffee finally arrived and we got back into
our vehicle to continue our journey, it was a full fifteen minutes we hadn’t
calculated into our transit time.
Then in the next block, after we exited McDonalds, a train
is stopped across the road. Dead stopped. No movement at all. With a police
vehicle already blocking access with lights flashing (on both sides of the
train), I make the quick assumption that it is stalled for an indefinite period
of time and we proceed with a quick recalculation again on the GPS for a second
detour.
The address he gave was for the main office of the college
campus where the concert was taking place, and as we arrived, we get a phone
message from my brother with more detailed instructions as to how to find the
concert hall, a full two miles further from the main office. All the while, I
had been texting my brother about our ETA, updating him, figuring out how to
meet for getting the concert tickets, which he eventually left at Will-Call so
he could sit down as the concert was already starting.
We arrived late and were seated between songs as my nephew’s
band began playing the last of their set. They were terrific. Small
consolation, the following two bands were terrific as well and we got to go out
for coffee with the family afterwards. But we were late. Oh, so late, for such
very good reasons that were not at all our fault.
These are not the kind of tardy arrival incidents I am
discussing in this post, but it was a “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” kind of
a story, don’t you think?
Sigh. Even explaining why we were late took me on a long
rabbit trail that has delayed my next paragraph.
Yes, even if I wanted to be at an event, I would still
sometimes be late. Sometimes just because I couldn’t get my act together or
took too long or didn’t leave soon enough. Sometimes, they couldn’t start
without me. They still loved me and it made it easier when I could explain all
the ridiculous and unexpected, unavoidable reasons for delays outside my
control, but when it was due to my own negligence or impertinence, I made it just
a smidge harder (and believe me, I am deeply grateful for the true friends who
heaped forgiveness on this and many other flaws).
How did I eventually change? I learned from personal
experience - when I’ve been on the receiving end: leading a rehearsal that
requires me repeating instructions for the latecomers (one of the joys of
working with volunteers) or hosting a dinner party that required closely timed
guest arrival with placing the success or fail entrée in front of them.
If I arrive late to the theatre for a live show or concert, I’m
not allowed in until a suitable break between acts or songs. If I arrive late for an airline flight, I miss it. We are penalized.
What’s a person to do when someone arrives late to a dinner party or a
rehearsal? Starting without them may drive the point home to them, but it
doesn’t seem to make a difference for chronic latecomers.
My father wanted one of my brothers to be more punctual. So
my father asked, “If we were to take a hymnal with us from every church we sing
in, would that be okay?” My brother says, “Of course not, it would be like
stealing.” My father’s point: “And when you take five minutes or more of our
time while we wait for you to arrive, you are stealing our time. Nine of us
waited five minutes for you, that’s 45 minutes you have stolen. It is time that
is not yours to take.”
Some of the things I did to overcome my own chronic
tardiness was related to realizing how I was impacting my relationships with
those I cared about. I had a choir member ream me out for “expecting more of
the choir than you expect of yourself.” She was right. I didn’t want to be kept
waiting but there were times I as the director had kept them waiting.
Some practical things I learned:
- allow extra time
- leave earlier
- start getting ready earlier
- shorten the to-do list
- eliminate all but the most essential tasks
- set aside perfectionism
- get used to saying: "That's good enough"
- stop being overly optimistic about how long something will take
- build in a buffer in case something happens along the way
- leave when planned
- discipline myself to NOT multi-task
I know all this. You know all this. But still, I push it. I’m
no longer a chronic tardy, but sometimes I still arrive late. I see others do
the same. Why?
Because I don’t want to have to be the one waiting on the
latecomers. What a lame reason. Seriously? That’s a whole ‘nother blog post all
on its own.
Back to the blogger’s paragraph. She felt looking good and
keeping routines for her family (even in the face of being the mom of a brand
new baby) would help her whole family feel better. She took the responsibility
to keep routine and beauty and tidiness in the middle of all that change and
upheaval. She was choosing beauty over ugly. Peace over chaos. Punctuality over
procrastination. But later in her blog, she confessed, “the laundry will never
be done” so we know she isn’t one of those uptight perfectionists, nor is she
blowing smoke, creating a false image of how organized she is. She simply wants
to help her family feel as normal and safe as possible as they integrate a new
little one into their family.
I find from experience that late arrivers (including myself)
begin to feel like unsafe people. I can’t count on them. Well, I can count on
them to be consistently late. They signify by their repeated tardiness that
they are not going to respect another’s time.
In the world of those who follow Christ, it doesn’t seem
very loving. But then again, neither does my forensic dissection of the issue.
I’m preaching at myself here. I’m just a writer trying to figure out how to
live in this world in a way that will help others feel safe around me.
I want to be a woman of my word. I want to be able to trust
myself and be confident that I will honor time commitments of others and help
them succeed by being prompt. I want to be respectful of others, honor their
time, be a good steward of this one precious life. Help the entire production
or choir or dinner party look better and feel better because no one is worrying
about when the last person will finally arrive and things can get started.
It’s ugly to arrive late.
I want to redeem the time, arrive calm and collected so that
I (and all the others with whom I am in community) will look and feel better. I
want to make room for time, for others, for sanity. To maintain small dignities to keep life steady in the
midst of change and chaos.
There’s no present like the time.
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