We know that getting rid of that clutter will make it easier to find the items we do need. That translates to lives with less anxiety in them, because we all know that that item we need always must be found in a ridiculously short period of time.

We won’t even go to the collection of allergens and dust that collect in that clutter.

We just find the item (or not) postpone it once more, berating ourselves on how it got to this stage, and promising to get to it soon, secretly knowing we never will; and why? The number one reason: Because we might just need it someday.

Whether we grew up in an environment where money was tight, or have fears about the future, the majority of things we save will never be used again.

Some of our possessions can be intertwined with sentimental values or events in our past, and for our own reasons find it psychologically difficult to discard them. Sports memorabilia and awards are reminders of past accomplishments. Other objects are part of family history and we feel obliged to keep them in trust, even if we are the only one who thinks so.

What to do? We could buy a bigger house but it may be more effective to keep the same house and reduce the volume of its contents.

Try to keep a replacement rule. Buying something new can be paired with letting something similar go. Honestly, this is an easy to say, hard to do rule. However, if we see our clothing piling up, it might be a good idea to donate some of the older ones.

Many of us have “sentimental” items linked to our past that have been stored untouched in attic or basement. Perhaps they are part of the family history but not something we want displayed in our home. And perhaps they are not as important as we think.

So what to do? Perhaps someone else in the family will store the items or if no one wants them, perhaps they can be sold and the proceeds shared by the family.

Many of us are storing items that are sentimental to other family members and perhaps friends. We who are parents know those other family members are many times our children, who go off and live their lives and leave their “sentimental” possessions in our garage or their old bedrooms.

Do relatives and family members treat your home like a storage facility? Politely ask them to come and claim them by a certain date, otherwise the items will be sold or trashed. This is a tough line, but we have a right not to be taken advantage of.

Another tough line to face is that we are the clutterers and taking advantage of our spouses and/or fellow residents of our home. Involve them in friendly discussions of what your and their vision of what your living space should be.

Lastly, face the time it will take to de-clutter and reorganize your space. Enlist the help of other family members. Divide big jobs into manageable tasks. Separate these jobs into bags for charity and bags of trash.

Decrease the stress in your home along with the clutter. Eliminate panic cleanups when guests are due.

Live a vital life.

The last marathon I ran was about twenty years ago.

Running a marathon was on my “bucket list” and I did it, and paid for it, both in the pain and stress of training, and the pain and stress of stopping my training right after I ran that race.

I had seen a “running your first marathon” training schedule in a fitness magazine, and since I was aging and refused to buy into it, I decided to go for that crazy distance.

I have since read that there was good reason the original Greek warrior died of a heart attack after completing his running journey to Athens from Marathon to announce victory over the Persians.

It wasn’t just that trip. Several days before, the herald (a renowned professional long-distance runner) ran 132 miles (214 km) on rough, unpaved roads over very hilly terrain in two days from Athens to Sparta, then another 156 miles (252 km) back past Athens to the Marathon battle site, probably fought all day in the battle, and then ran the remaining 26 miles (42km) to Athens to report the victory.

No wonder he died. But he was a herald, and that was his job.

The run to Sparta has been documented, and we can assume the herald ran back, but the Spartans wanted to wait nine days to join the battle because of a religious festival. There is debate about the historical accuracy of the run to Athens and the heart attack.

The tradition of the Olympic Marathon was started in 1896 was set at 40km. The 1908 London Olympics added a lap inside the Olympic Stadium, setting the distance at 26 miles, 385 yards, to finish in front of the Royal family box so they could have a better view of the finish.

So much for the history. I was fascinated by the thought of running 26+ miles and decided to go for it..

Running a marathon is significant abuse to your body. In Detroit in 2009, three runners died during the marathon. It was reported as not statistically significant in a race with 19,000 entrants, except to the families of those who died.

“I think the overlying message has got to be marathon running is good for your health,” said Robert Sallis, chief of sports medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, California.

When asked about the 25-year old who died, he replied, “Even though he died while he was out for a run, it’s clear that the running was beneficial to him,” Sallis said. “He’s not an example of why marathon running is dangerous. It’s clear to me that the running probably prolonged his life.” OK….

My purpose here is not to trash marathons. A study on London Marathon runners over a 20 year period, in fact, found that with a rate of death of 1 in 67,414 (representing 1 in 2,000,000 miles run) marathon running was no more dangerous than many other daily activities.

As a side note, I am disconcerted at the clinical disconnecting of people’s death during and in the days following the marathon event. Even if the strain on their bodies caused terminal failure, they deny it was the marathon event that held any cause.

Twenty years ago, I was capable of running one-third the distance across New Jersey in a single effort at better than 10 minutes per mile. Today, I am unlikely to recapture that physical condition or body anytime soon.

What did I learn?

The only thing remaining vividly in my memory is the pain of training and the pain of becoming untrained. I was fine when I ran (and I looked good in the photos).

I actually finished later than I could have because I encountered another runner in the final miles of the race who had lapsed into unconsciousness, but was still running. At that point it was faster to get him help at the finish line, so I just pushed him around the curves to the gate.

Officials had to tackle him to stop him from running, and the last I saw of him was as he was loaded into an ambulance, wrapped in aluminum foil, with his marathon medal draped on his chest. The medic told me I had saved his life.

I didn’t realize until later that I had crossed marathons off my chart. I learned that day that I can live a vital life without enormous accomplishments that put my life in danger. For clarification, I still run (more slowly) and occasionally complete a half-marathon.

And I listen to my body telling me when to rest.

I still travel the distance of a marathon–just not all at once, and not faster than my body can handle.

Live a vital life.

There are actually 14 martyred Valentines mentioned in historical and Christian records.

Valentine was a pretty common name, but the day is allegedly attributed to one particular Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae), who lived in the time of Emperor Claudius II.

This was 42 years before Christianity was accepted under Emperor Constantine in 312AD, so Christians were still pretty quiet about their new-found religion.

Claudius had this belief that only single men made good soldiers and made a law forbidding soldiers to marry. Married men were reluctant to leave their families when it came time to go to war, and cautious on the battlefield.

The Imperial Roman army was mainly volunteer at that time.

Valentinus presbyr was a Christian priest and was arrested performing a forbidden marriage under a forbidden religion.

Claudius is reported to have been impressed with Valentinus and interrogated him personally in an attempt to get him to renounce his religion. It would have been a triumph for Claudius to convert the popular Valentinus, but instead, Valentinus tried to convert Claudius to Christianity.

This just made Claudius mad and Valentinus was sentenced to death.

In prison, Valentine reportedly performed a miracle, curing the jailer’s daughter of blindness. Before he went to his execution, he gave her a personal note and signed it, “From your Valentine.”

Romans were big on making the prisoner suffer before he died, so Valentine was beaten with sticks, then stoned, and finally beheaded.

He was buried on February 14, 269AD, the day before the start of the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia in honor of Juno, Queen of Roman Gods and Goddesses and the Goddess of women and marriage.

It may have been a message sent by Claudius that Valentine the marriage priest was executed just before the start of the festival, when young men drew the names of girls from jars or boxes, and partnered with them for the duration of the festival. Often, these relationships developed into love and marriage.

The love custom of men choosing their life partners was forever connected with the memory of Valentine’s Day.

And the custom of handing lover’s personal notes “from your Valentine” has also survived.

When a person asks an intended partner to “be my Valentine,” it is more than a request to be a lover. The etymology of the name Valentine is “strong” or “healthy.”

“Be my Valentine” means “be my strength” and is a request to be a strong partner.

As time went on, traditions have been established and grown. From the original idea that a token gift should accompany the personal note, gifts have grown to jewelry, flowers, candy and more. Hotel room rentals and restaurants are at their peak on this day.

The red rose has come to symbolize the color of love and passion. Our blood is red, and our complexions may reflect that in time of passion. Red is the color of heat in the form of lava or fire. Since it is the longest wavelength we can see, it is the color of beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Rearranging the letters of “rose” gives us the name Eros, the Roman god of love. And finally, psychological research has shown that men find women who are wearing red more attractive.

Enjoy the day.  Live a vital life.

At the other extreme are the people who take a long time to evaluate a situation.  We will call them the hesitant.  They have to be forced to make a decision; otherwise no decision is their decision.   They think and evaluate and assign different weights to factors and points of views that will influence their choice, then change the weights and evaluate again.  They are afraid to make a wrong choice; and when they finally do, they feel regret and may try to rethink the decision. 

Examples of these people might be the hoarders of today’s society.  The insides of their houses are piled high with everything they have come across in their history.  They cannot make a choice of what to buy so they buy one or more of each.  Once the items pass their useful life, they cannot make the choice to discard. 

Most of us fall between those two extremes.  We feel we can usually make an intelligent and correct decision after evaluating a few key factors.  We may want that expensive sports car, but after evaluating the payments, the insurance, the gas mileage and our actual needs, we will probably choose something more practical.    

We have what psychologists call ambivalence.  We can see the darkness in mostly white choices and the white in mostly dark choices.  We can see both sides of an argument and the value of different factors as they are considered together.  We look at things on the one hand and also consider them on the other hand. 

A synonym for ambivalence is “of two minds.”    

The degree of ambivalence affects people’s lives every day at every major and minor decision crossroad from job choices to life partner choices to where we decide to live.   

There are times when high ambivalence is desirable (making a tough choice) and times when we must be decisive.  Decisive people make decisions quickly and often go with instinct rather than evaluating deciding factors.

Researchers have been investigating ambivalence and how it affects people’s lives by the decisions they make, and they have found that ambivalent thinking is a sign of maturity, enabling people to see the complexities of the world and thereby make better decisions.   

They have also been researching why some people tend toward decisiveness and why some people are ambivalent.  Although they can’t say for sure, personality traits and family history play a role.  People raised with ambivalent parents tend to follow their trend. 

People also tend to follow the easy road when possible.  If they don’t have to make a decision they won’t.  But with a strong need to quickly reach correct decisions, as in the case of a military officer, they can learn to be decisive. 

Our western culture where we feel there is only one right answer is in contrast to eastern cultures with their recognition of dualism, where two differing philosophies may both be right.  

The decisive many times get stuck in their single point of view and refuse to see anything else, causing conflict with others who may also be decisive with a different point of view.  They can focus on only one or a few aspects of a problem without looking at the big picture.  They have no “other hand.” 

In the workplace, the decisive focus on the few things important to them and perform consistently well if they like what they see and badly if they do not.  Ambivalents perform well on some days and badly on other days in response to the good and bad aspects of their job, but will stay at their jobs longer than the decisive. 

The same trends follow with relationships.  Ambivalents never put negative aspects out of their minds, but stay in relationships anyway.     

In the movie “Swing Vote, ” Kevin Costner inadvertently became the single vote needed to choose the next president. His choice would have been no choice, but he became a focus point for the nation.  Who did he choose?

I think he chose…  but on the other hand…

Command a vital life. Live free.

The ideal body type today for men has become more muscular and bulked up.  The perfect man is seen with narrow waist, six-pack or washboard abs, muscular shoulders and bulging biceps.  This attention has been good for gym memberships and manufacturers of bodybuilding machines.  It has also been good for those of us who endure a generous waistline.

It has not been good for those who have dedicated themselves not only to develop muscles, but also obsess to obtain a perfect body, perhaps going on to unhealthy and dangerous behaviors including steroid and substance abuse. 

Low self-esteem has been found to be a more likely cause of bulk building than the pursuit of health.  The perceived reaction to the future perfect body drives that person to continuously work out, and the social isolation that results is a situation they are used to. 

The problem starts with being dissatisfied with their body image, and they see bulking up as a means of social acceptance.

What they do not see is that people relate to them through their confidence and personality.  What they do not see is there is no one ideal shape or size for all.

Getting in shape is a great goal.  Exercise and diet are still the only healthy way to fitness.

The world is filled with people of all shapes and sizes.  Relationships are built on compatibility between people.  How much time would we spend with a person who had a perfect body and no personality?

While confidence is a major aspect of personality, and toning our body through normal exercise and diet may increase our self-confidence, getting to the point of a healthy body should be the goal. 

Moderation is key.  We should learn when to stop as well as when to start. 

Command a vital life. Live free.

“Happy anniversary,” she said with a chuckle. 

Oops.  I had completely forgotten our anniversary.  The thing that saved me was so did she. 

We made our wedding date the day after Income tax many years ago when I had a business printing out tax returns for accounting and tax services at a computer center.  With last-minute tax preparations, the day after income tax was the first day I could schedule for anything.

Luckily, April 16 was a Saturday and my bride-to-be made all the preparations.  She ordered the cake, invited relatives and friends and even picked out my suit.  When I got up Saturday morning all I had to do was to get dressed. 

That was a small bump in the road we have traveled together for 32 years. 

But life happens and occasionally, normally important things get temporarily lost behind the smoke screen of the immediate problems that we must deal with. 

In the previous weeks, our life has been bumpy.  My middle-thirties daughter suffers from an insidious, incurable disease that has been acting up pretty severely recently.  She has a normal job, but has been sick so often recently, she went on Family Medical Leave (FMLA), a great federal program that allows her time off to go to the doctor and to the hospital to have her disease treated without getting her fired. 

On top of all the visits to local doctors, the Emergency Room and going through an endless array of drugs to try to make her disease manageable she has finally been referred to a surgical facility.  There is no other choice. 

The best hospital for the job is 90 miles away and there are more than several visits before the surgery. 

While my wife drives her down and back, I take care of our ‘almost’ seven-year-old grandson and relieve her of that stress.  We generally wind up together for dinner, and at least we can spend some pleasant time together. 

On another note, as the IRS deadline approached, our son, who made more than a fair amount selling items on Amazon last year, was a nearly nightly visitor to ask for the help of my accountant wife.  He also stayed many times for dinner as well. 

We love having our kids visit, although under these circumstances, it made for a rather hectic lifestyle.  So, April 15 came and went, and it didn’t even occur to me that the following day was our wedding anniversary day. 

I am grateful that my wife has a sense of humor and I rewarded her with an anniversary card and flowers, and we rewarded ourselves by going out to dinner (alone) at a nice restaurant. 

These are some examples of riding the bumps in the road.  We have no say in how life goes.  We can only try to react to circumstances thrust upon us.  And we have lived and been married long enough to ride the little bumps without breaking pace.  We have learned that life has enough of the big bumps. 

All in all, life happens and includes lots of bumps.

Command a vital life. Live free.

The glum faces of Team USA impressed me as they were receiving their silver medals.  Each of them looked like they would never play hockey again.  Later, during the closing ceremonies, they seemed in better mood, but the initial letdown of losing after trying so hard showed on their faces. 

Looking on without the emotional involvement of the practices and playing six intense games in 13 days, I could idealistically ask why they were so glum when they had proven they were the second best hockey team in the world. 

And I get stuck on the words, “second best.”

Team USA did not want second best, they wanted “best.”  In preliminary play, they actually beat Team Canada, and so they thought they could actually do it.  And they did come within an inch of achieving that goal. 

Team Canada had them down by two goals, when Team USA scored their first goal twelve minutes into the second period, and the tying goal with 25 seconds left in regulation play. 

Needless to say, that’s when emotions peaked. 

Going into overtime with four skaters and a goaltender playing “sudden death” their nerves must have been like violin strings – can’t make a mistake …

But fortune went to Team Canada, when their player found the puck almost unexpectedly near his stick, and in his own words, I just hit it in the direction of the net.  And it went in. 

Make no mistake; the win could have gone either way.  

Neither team was second best.  They were each at their personal best.  Team USA played as well as Team Canada, but opportunity came first to the Canadian team. 

And therein lies the lesson for us.  Life is like that.

We prepare to the best of our ability for an event, a job or career.  We perform our personal best, but someone else is a razor-thin line better or seizes an opportunity and they win the job, the place first in line, and we are “second best.”  We feel the disappointment intensely. 

But winners pick themselves up, improve their skills and move on to the next opportunity. 

Winners are never “second best” except in a particular circumstance or event.  They will never be “second best” in their own minds.

They are “best” somewhere, and often in many places, and they continue to practice and play the game until the world sees that they are the “best” as well. 

Let’s make it personal for ourselves.  Let’s never settle for “second best. 

Command a vital life. Live free.

It is easy to get our schedules bunched up as well as our blood pressure; and very easy to be late.  Habitually late

If we were meeting a potential romantic partner or employer, I would bet we would move everything out of our way to arrive on time, especially if it is the first time. 

Whether it is a date or meeting, over time we get comfortable and it becomes part of our routine.  We push the schedule and insert small tasks before we have to leave and they take longer than we thought.  We get more done, but are habitually late. 

Our blood pressure rises and we feel the stress squeezing us. 

So, how can we defend ourselves?  Don’t be late.  How can we do that? 

Make each time like the first time. 

This presupposes our schedule is not like an emergency room disaster.  If it is, we can do two things; try to lighten our schedule or become experts at time management or a combination of both. 

We can try to say no to some meetings and events if they make our lives too stressful.  We can try to limit activities with our young ones or involve other family members to help out. 

But at work, we might have a boss who doesn’t understand anything except his own needs, and drives us relentlessly.  We can probably discuss it with him, but he wouldn’t understand our hectic schedule.  We can ask him to prioritize the meetings he wants us to attend on time and without stress.  And he may be deaf to our suggestions. 

In that case, a decision should be made.  Do we want to die of stress on our present job, or live with another, better job? 

And if we manage to lower our activity, appointment and meeting schedule, we can then work to lower our stress by allowing ourselves a pace to get there on time or, even a little early.  How?  Apply a little project schedule planning.

Planning

Everything we do that involves interdependent activities is a project.  There are things we can control and things we cannot.  The secret is to recognize the difference, and plan each leg.  

First we need to do some calculations to know our personal numbers—adjust them for each particular case:

• Know how much sleep we need if we have a super-important appointment like a job interview the next day.  Let’s enter 8 hours.
• We are not robots, so it takes some time to fall asleep – more if we are apprehensive or nervous about the next day’s events.  Let’s enter 30 minutes. 
• We are not firemen, so leaping out of bed fully dressed and ready for action will not happen.  Most people need about 90 minutes to rise, shower, clear our morning fog, and dress.  It wouldn’t hurt to add 30 minutes for miscellaneous items like de-icing the car in winter, walking the family pet, herding our young ones and making breakfast.  Let’s enter 120 minutes to get out the door from the sound of the alarm. 
• How long will it take to get to our destination?  If we are driving, is there gas in the car?  If we take public transportation, do we know the bus or train schedule?  Would it hurt us to take an earlier bus or train in case there were delays?  Do we drop our young ones off on our way? 

This is a personal estimate of travel time, and keeping abreast of weather conditions and construction sites will help make the number more accurate.  We all like to estimate our travel time as if it was Sunday midnight, but most commuters commute at about the same time.  Vary the time with experience.  Pad on some extra minutes, just in case. 

Preparation

Next, prepare the night before.  Put gas in the car.  Organize what we will need and place it by the front door to avoid forgetting it.  Lay out clothes for our young ones and ourselves.  Prepare lunches and store them in the refrigerator. 

Check directions to our destination if it is unfamiliar.  If we are driving, it wouldn’t hurt to plan an alternate route in case of jammed traffic. 

I used to take a route to work through a large metropolitan center.  It was the most direct route, but every day, there were accidents and construction and my stress levels soared.  Then I planned an alternate route around the metropolis.  It was slightly longer, but less traveled, and the time was constant every day.  I actually enjoyed the drive. 

Distractions

The last thing I like to do before retiring is to check my e-mail for any change in plans.  I can do it in the morning, but 5 minutes usually turns into 25 and I fall behind schedule. 

This falls into the category of distractions that can put us behind schedule.  Other distractions may be an unexpected phone call.  Some of us cannot resist the sound of a ringing phone.  This is a discipline issue.  Let it go to voice mail unless it is someone with critical news.  We can call them back while enroute or when we arrive early at our meeting. 

Other distractions may include young ones out of sorts; they don’t like what they have to wear; they don’t like breakfast; they didn’t do their homework and a big report is due today.  Sorry, I can’t help you there.

If this is a regular occurrence perhaps we need to build it into the schedule.

Scheduling

Finally, we should time ourselves to be at the right point at the right time in the schedule, so we’re ready to leave on time. 

If getting up is our problem, we can set the bedside alarm ahead to compensate for hitting the snooze button too often, or we can set the alarm out of reach or out of the room to force us up to shut off the annoyance.  Most cell phones have a multiple alarm capability that can be set a few minutes later than the bedside alarm with a second alarm going off when we should be leaving the house. 

Practice

In truth, this approach requires discipline to keep to the schedule, but with practice it gets easier. 

In a recent CareerBuilder survey, 20 percent of workers admitted to getting to work late at least once per week.  12 percent confessed to at least twice per week.  Constantly arriving 15 minutes late cost our employers a week’s pay in lost productivity over the course of a year. 

And this is no economy to make our employer feel we are cheating them. 

Payoff

Arriving early gives us time; time to de-stress, to read an article, write a letter, make a phone call or work on something personal while waiting for the meeting or our work shift to start.

Arriving early gets noticed.  Over the years of my business career, the promotions and raises always went to those who arrived early, even if they did not stay one minute past quitting time.  Executives are in their jobs partially because of their timeliness, and they notice those who are like them. 

And finally, routinely arriving late for our date or meetings shows everyone we have little respect for them or ourselves. 

Command a vital life. Live free.

We are not robots, although sometimes the dullness of life can make us feel that way.  At various stages of our lives, we are overwhelmed by the boredom of daily living.  I guess that is what winter vacations are for. 

There are many diversions built into our lives to relieve boredom.  There is the latest movie or album to entertain us for a brief period, there are events and activities of all kinds to break up our days, too many to mention.  Each one offers an invitation to participate. 

Back to the scribbled note, it names a major reason for living is to have a little joy.  What dismal persons are those who have no joy. 

Joy might be discussed as internal happiness.  We all know people who run the range from being nonstop happy (sometimes very annoying) to nonstop unhappy.  We should focus on the middle ground. 

Let’s look at it from the backside. We know a lot of things that will make us unhappy (supply your own list here) and by eliminating them from our lives (where possible) our happiness index will naturally rise. 

If our lives are weighed down by responsibilities, see them through and don’t renew. 

Once we have a written list of what makes us unhappy, we can also make a list of what would make us happy, and try them out, one at a time.  Then we know if it stays or goes from the list.  We should be creative and not hold back.  We may not ever have the opportunity to “run away with the circus,” but on that list will be a lot of dreams that could become reality if we follow that path.  

Now that’s a reason for living.

We should be careful what we wish for.  Winning the lottery, as an example, should make us happy, but many people who have won wind up unhappy, plagued by relentless appeals for money. 

A major item that makes people unhappy is lack of control over their life activities.  The punishment of imprisonment is more than the lack of freedom; it is the lack of control over the person’s life.  They can make almost no choices of their own. 

Many of us are caught in a web of our own making.  As we mature, obligations seem magically to accumulate and we are driven by them.  We feel we are losing control over large portions of our lives.  We are not happy, and can’t pin the reason why. 

Feeling helpless and loss of control makes us unhappy. 

We must be careful to combat those feelings early.  Left to themselves they will get worse and may cause depression.  People give up living when they lose all control. 

We should go back to that list or make a new list of things that obligate us and things that draw us to them.  Rate them on some scale, positive for the things we want to do and would make us happy, negative for the things that make us unhappy. 

Keep in mind that an obligation like college tuition for a child will result in the happiness of seeing that person graduate with a career.   

If there are relationship issues, there are thousands of articles and mentors that can help us deal with and improve them.

Make it a hobby to work on the list, taking steps forward to raise the negative ratings and gain free time to pursue the positive items that will bring us joy. 

Now that’s another reason for living. 

Finally, feeling useless makes us unhappy. 

We are social animals, and it is built into our genes to help others.  We can volunteer for something that helps another person.  It is one thing to send money, but physically working to help others face to face makes us feel useful and gives us deeper satisfaction. 

Can we make someone’s life better by helping them in some way that would only get done with our efforts?  Try it.  You’ll feel great.  

And that’s another reason for living. 

Don’t give up living and don’t “run away with the circus.” 

Be useful; be happy. 

Command a vital life. Live free.

People make appointments and are late all the time – look at the cable guy.  Society today has a problem with promptness.  Trains and airline schedules are delayed all the time.  My coworkers are late all the time.  Why should I be on time?  If I am an hour or two late for dinner at Mom’s she won’t mind. 

Why bother getting to work on time?  I can get there any time and stay late, as long as I accomplish what I need to do.

Who cares if we are on time? 

A lot of people care.  15 minutes late is not late, is it?  The answer may surprise you. 

Think of a bus, train or plane leaving at a scheduled time.  We get there 15 minutes late.  They are gone.  Why didn’t they wait?  It was only a few minutes.  Now I have a great inconvenience. 

Our employer cares

Two-thirds of the expenses companies spend are on the workforce.  That cost is reflected in the products the company sells.  Putting in less than the time we are paid for lowers our productivity and is basically shoplifting from the company, ultimately raising the cost of the product.   

Arrival lateness cheats coworkers of their time, especially if they depend on our presence or have to spend time filling us in on what we missed.  Organizations lose millions in lost productivity due to lateness.  A 15-minute daily lateness costs the company more than our weekly salary over the course of a year. 

Our family and friends care

Perhaps Mom doesn’t say anything about our lateness, but she worked hard to prepare that dinner on time, and keeping it warm because of our lateness will dry it out.  It minimizes her gift prepared with her labor and shows her our lack of respect. 

When we promise to meet our friends at a certain time and we are late, we are showing them they are not important to us.

We should care

When we are consistently late, we project an image of self-indulgence, disrespect, and lack of time organization, telling everyone that we are more important than their insignificant event.  Like Mom, they may never say it, but they are thinking it. 

We should imagine ourselves on the other side at work, watching us consistently come in late.  Would we give that person a responsible project with a deadline?   

We should visualize each workday or meeting like a job interview appointment.  Would we be late then? 

Arriving early with small tasks we can work on will show off our characteristics of time management and respect. 

Punctuality is the most obvious form of loyalty we can display.  Time is never refunded once spent.

“I could never think well of a man’s … character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.”  Nathaniel Emmons

Command a vital life. Live free.