Ok, I spent the first 40 years of my life being late. I was between 20 minutes and 4 months late for everything. No matter how important. My family knew to tell me an adjusted time to be somewhere to account for my lateness. It cost me friends, it cost me relationships, it cost me in work relationships and profits. I lost at least one girlfriend I know. She used to yell at me “You don’t leave until you’re supposed to be there, it’s no wonder you’re always so late.”.

And then one day, I woke up and realized that my being late was accomplishing little more than hurting the people around me. I realized that I was being a real asshole. I made the decision then and there that I would never be late again, I would be 10 minutes early.

It was a dramatic change. My family asked where the clone came from. People I interacted with daily were amazed. The lingering anger disappeared.

Took me 40 years to figure it out.

In the last 20 years I have not always made the 10 minutes early, but I have always made it on time. Only once have I been truly late was because 94 was closed due to an accident in front of me. Now, here’s the quandary; I have little to no tolerance for lateness in people. If someone is chronically late, I’ll stop meeting with them. I had one person that at about 20 minutes without a call or text, I left the restaurant. I’m not sure if that is hypocritical or agreeing with social norms.