Creative Thinking: 5:30 p.m. at Starbucks
Two words we are all very familiar with are “time” and “respect.” According to the dictionary, time is the progress of existence and events in a person’s life. It is also a plan, schedule or arrangement regarding something that should happen or to be done. Respect is a feeling of appreciation for someone, determined by their qualities or abilities. Is there a relation between the two? There surely is.
Imagine two cities, A and B, located in the same area, similar in size and number of inhabitants. You decide to visit one of them, you go there and find a lovely scenario. Every thing is carried out in an orderly, neatly arranged way, friends get together at the time they had agreed upon, meetings are held when they are supposed to take place. In a word, people are “punctual.” You appreciate what you see and eventually move on to visit the other city. Here you find a totally different situation. The time previously arranged is never taken into consideration, people go to their appointments forty five minutes late, meetings that should start at 8:00 end up beginning at 9:30. No one is ever punctual and no one seems to mind. Everybody takes this way of behaving as normal, as a matter of fact. Do you, too, believe that it is?
These scenarios are, of course, “extreme,” but my point here is this: How “normal” (and acceptable) it is not to keep your word? How come that — for one way of thinking — when an individual says to a friend, “Let’s get together at Starbucks at 5:00pm,” he actually intends to go to and be at the chosen place at 5:00pm, while — for another way of thinking — when you say the same words, when you are making a date you actually mean, “Who cares about the time? I’ll take it easy. It doesn’t matter if I reach the coffee shop half or one hour late?” What puzzles me is why people specify a time and do not follow their own specification. This can only signify that they do not wonder about the other individual, who might actually trust their words and who goes to the appointment on time.
This is a third scenario, the one we usually find ourselves in, i.e. where one individual is punctual while the other is not. I wish I could understand how minds can work so differently. Is this a sign of … what? Hard to say. I, personally, was raised to believe that your word is sacred, that when you say anything you really mean it, when you make a promise you have the intention to comply, when you arrange a date you are planning to be there on time. Evidently some people’s minds move in another direction. They, so to say, take everything easy and don’t care about keeping their word or meeting expectations. I am aware that we should not always have expectations, but in the case of punctuality, I believe we should.
I remember an acquaintance of mine telling me, “I don’t give any importance to time. I wear a watch only as a piece of jewelry.” Although this subject is not of capital importance, you cannot deny that such an attitude can create problems in dealing with your fellow human beings. If, for instance, I ask you to meet at the mall at 6:30 pm, you might not agree and it would be your right not to accept my proposal unconditionally. You are entitled to suggest a time that is more convenient for you and I will accept it. But, when it’s “you” who suggests a specific time, allow me to “expect” you to be punctual.
Going back to the connection between time and respect, my conclusion is that some people don’t respect other people’s time. Not only: They don’t respect other people, period. If you respect me as an individual, you respect who I am in general, my time included. Besides, if you respect “yourself,” you keep your word, you consider your word as something deserving to be trusted.
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