Astutely Resolute

Hello again, awwww. This is nice, feels great…it’s been too long since I have been here.  A wise Shaw told me that he believed my lack of recent blogging was due to living more and not writing about living. He was pretty spot on. In fact, I have been doing a lot of living and contemplating and resolving. All perfect beginnings to this twenty ten path of change and success, right? Right!

For your musical accompaniment today, I have chosen “Un Dia” by Juana Molina, a little gem of a lady from Buenos Aires. If you have not heard of her, Radiolab did a short podcast about her, look it up! The translation: “One day I will be someone different/One day I will live in the middle of the country and dance, dance, dance!”

I realize that I am a little behind on New Years jargon, but I was born 3 weeks late and that has been my doomed, rarely punctual existence ever since.  Coincidentally, that topic is my first order of business in this first post of this fantastic new year.

Resolution #1 BE ON TIME TO WORK

For some of us, this is a problem that is hard to correct. It all started in High School when you just didn’t give a rat’s ass about being on time.  Although it is hilarious that I would show up at the same time every day, only 5 minutes late. Why couldn’t/can’t I just make my time of arrival 5 minutes earlier? I obviously am capable of showing up at the same time on a daily basis, just the wrong time. And if you know me, even a little bit, you know that I have a problem. I am completely aware of this predicament and it is a struggle, day in and day out.

My mother tells me it is arrogance. Maybe I have a lateness problem because my mother thinks I am arrogant?

All joking aside, it is a serious issue that I am determined to rectify, or at least be better-ify. I have even (just) come up with a name for this ailment “Retardiness”.

Think about it, it’s perfect.

I think there will be books published on the matter of Retardiness soon, maybe there already is one…

I just searched, and yes, there are plenty; “Chronic Lateness” they call it (I like mine better). Here is my favorite excuse from a business exec about one of his employees:

“One morning, more than two hours late, she called to explain that she’d awakened to discover two male window washers on scaffolding outside her bedroom window,” he said. “Because she slept nude, she said, she was waiting for them to leave before she could get up and come to work.”

I might have to borrow that one… Bah. No! because I am going to make an effort to change my habits.

Fortunately I am never two hours late unless there is a real problem, ie. my plane was delayed, I forgot about daylight savings, or I hit an elephant with my car.

I am generally in the 5-25 minutes late range. I have been delving more and more into the question of why I do this to myself. I used to think that it was because I had such a hard time getting out of bed in the morning that I let myself sleep in until the last possible moment (after about 4 snooze button smacks).  Nope, it is not so easy Michaela Joy.

I currently start work at 4pm. As in AFTER noon.  A time when most are preparing to leave work. And if I have trouble getting out of bed to go to work, it is because I went to bed at 8 that morning. What would I do on most days before work? Oh, nothing really of substance.  I would get up perpetually late and stay in sweats until right before I have to leave and then race around trying to get ready and run out the door, barely giving myself enough time to get there. I also have a tendency to gauge my amount of time I need to make it there based on that one time that I made it there in a ridiculous small amount of time. Meaning, I went 30 miles over the speed limit, with absolutely no traffic and made every signal complete with a parking spot waiting for me out front. Which means, I can make it there in this short, unrealistic amount of time.  And apparently in my tardy filled world, I always think positive and that will happen every time. Chyeah.

Am I an imbecile? I did go to college, three of them in fact. I even have a fancy expensive piece of paper to prove this fact. And it’s not like I am floozie who gets distracted by smelling flowers or catching my reflection in the mirror (okay, maybe I have done that once or twice). I do always try to make it on time, the universe just gets in my way.

At least, that is what I deemed to be true, until I started realizing how much I try to squeeze into my day, how much I always wanted to spend just two extra minutes flossing my teeth or somebody distracted me, or I had to upload new music on my phone…

I suddenly decided that I will no longer be late to work and hope that this small change will escalate into the rest of my endeavors and in turn, change me into a more punctual individual. This was also given the extra shove when people at work started noticing. (Hey, I live in a new place, I got away with it for a long while… geez, I am arrogant, shit.)

I now try to go to bed earlier, wake up at a decent hour and exercise early. Therefore, I take a shower earlier and then the process is already done and I just have to go when the time is right. I even have time to run errands and actually cook a decent meal to bring with me. (These new habits are brought on by Resolution # 2: PLEASE RID ME OF CANDIDA, which will be my next posting)

You may be wondering, well Mak, did it work? Are you on time now? And I am proud to say that it has worked. I will be honest and say there were a couple days in the last month where I was late, but that is a HUGE improvement. I still stress out about getting there, but it is a process, I hope to alleviate all this stress and maybe start arriving early??? Nooooo, that would be apocalyptic.

My question for you is to think about a vice that you really want to be rid of and do it. Starting today.

The time is now, don’t waste it…. by being late. HA.

[Oh Yeah, Happy Bloody Valentines Day.]