Be Early

Not late, not on time. Early.

There must be a study somewhere about the inverse relationship between how late you are and how much stress it causes versus being early and how little stress that causes. In fact, being early doesn’t cause any stress.

Being early promotes calm, ease, confidence, peace, joy, tranquility and time. So, ahem, why aren’t we all early for everything?

There is no on time. There’s early and there’s late. On time is even a little weird. People who are exactly on time aren’t natural. I’m sometimes like that. I’ll wait until the clock is exactly on the hour and I’ll make the phone call. But it’s odd. It’s unnatural. I’d rather be early and have time to … be on time if I choose to be.

But I don’t have that option because I’m rarely early.

 I need a challenge. I need some accountability. Who out there is going to challenge me to be early to every single event, meeting, dentist appointment, school function and just every single thing where you’re supposed to show up at a given time. Who does that sort of thing? Who could provide an experiment, maybe just a single month long, to see what happens if someone were early to everything they did? I’d bet that if someone made these changes for a single month, it would, no exaggeration here, change their energy, their outlook, their health, their life. Sign me up. Where do I sign up?

It’s fun to be proud of someone you like. My mother-in-law starts packing for trips days in advance. Now, I hear that old people do these sorts of things, but she does it for lots of stuff. On the other hand, she’s a little stressed out for days before a trip, too. I don’t know if it’s because she’s packing so far in advance or because travel is harder for older people. But there’s something to be said for showing up at the airport with plenty of time. Let me quote those three words again: Plenty Of Time.

Does anyone talk much about having plenty of time? Who says that? Who utters those words? I know I do, but it’s 92% of the time in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, sure, you’ll have plenty of time to get to soccer after school.” Yeah, in other words, no way.

I make new year’s resolutions in the summer, not at the turn of the calendar. School’s out, we travel lots, life is different, it’s up in the air, it’s good. It’s the best time for change: right in the middle of change. Hey, you’re already changing, just keep pushing.

I need to / want to / will die early if I don’t / strive to start to become someone who is early for things. I know I can do it. I know I’ll become a different person, a better person. Why don’t we do things that we know will improve us?

It’s ironic, but this is a late-night post today … about being early. I get a chuckle out of that.

• Possible: Be late.
• Impossible: Be on time.
• Repossible: Be early.