Japan’s olympics minister Yoshitaka Sakurada was forced to offer a public apology after arriving three minutes late to a parliamentary meeting! The MPs he was scheduled to meet thought it was disrespectful and staged a 5-hour long budget boycott in protest! I guess if you’re overseeing the olympics, you have to set the right precedent given that several events and activities are won or lost by seconds! If I lived or worked in Japan or any other place where they’re strict on punctuality, I’d be in so much trouble! Thank God for African time I guess! Time is money and yet many of us “waste” it, inadvertently or otherwise. I hate to admit it but I’m always late. Part of it comes from not doing things in their “right” time. I don’t eat on time, don’t go to bed on time or finish my assignments on time. Wish I could do better. Not that I don’t plan things out. I actually do, sometimes, but I also do many things last minute. For instance, I will pick out my clothes for the week and then change my mind and decide to go with something totally different which then means I have to do some ironing and perhaps change shoes and the whole time I’m doing that, the clock doesn’t stop. I could be in the middle of filing a report and then decide to finish a chapter or episode of whatever show I’m hooked on at the time. But my biggest issue is that I’m really not a morning person and I struggle to get out of bed almost every single day. Which is kind of surprising since I attended boarding school and we had to wake up so early. I don’t recall missing morning prep or getting punished for turning up late for class. Since I left school though, my timekeeping has gone downhill. I try to get to places and meetings on time but more often that, I find myself apologizing for not making it on time. I always think I have all the time in the world until I don’t. Typical of procrastinators. Instead of doing things right away, I’m like “Oh I’ll do that later” and later becomes tomorrow, next week and before I know it, the month is gone and I can’t get that time back. I’ve missed friends’ Wedding ceremonies, nephews’ and nieces’ Baptisms and even my own dental appointments! You’d think a night of excruciating pain would be enough motivation to get up early so I don’t have to wait at the doctor’s! Sometimes I have emergencies but often, it’s really down to poor time management. In my defence, it runs in the family. My mum is the worst and in typical “Do as I say but not as I do” fashion, she will berate you for being late and yet she will wait till right before we leave the house to look for a head wrap or necklace and we all end up showing up late to an event! There have also been times we were halfway there and had to turn all the way back because she forgot something at home. A present, invitations… I’m the first to complain of course! And if I’m supposed to meet someone and they’re late, I’ll be mad. Perpetual latecomers hate waiting too!
