Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Being Late Context
One of my sister’s favourite lines is “she was born late, and she’s been late ever since”. It’s true; arriving on time is a struggle for me, and I was born late. When I met my husband, an early person, everyone I knew breathed a sigh of relief because, between the two of us, we arrived on time – no more being late for me!
By the way, I hated being early, particularly to events. Usually, you sat there making small talk and only once the small talk passed stuff would get interesting. It was selfish of me to let others do the hard work of small talk. To be clear, it was mostly an unconscious decision to be late.
I’ve asked myself many times why I’ve persisted in being late. My retrospective reasoning went like, “I’m always where I’m meant to be when I’m meant to be there”. Yes, it’s more a justification but still maddening for recipients.
Alternatively, I blamed TV shows. As each show went from plot point to plot point, usually without travel, so too was my reliability and being late. For example, if an event needed or wanted my presence (I reasoned no one ever ‘really’ wanted me there) and it was 15 minutes away in travel, I was 15 minutes late. The degree of lateness, of course, became a problem the further I was away from an event.
Now, my tardiness isn’t always within my control. As a “relieving staff” officer for a couple of years, one of my jobs was to backfill anyone sick or on leave across the metropolitan region, and relieving as a teller was one of them. That was before automatic teller machines (ATMs), banks had staff at counters performing that function. So, travelling up to two hours, at a moment’s notice, was not uncommon.
Mitigating Circumstances
One of the ways I tried to overcome my lateness was by reading. I discovered the joy of reading if I arrived early and there was nothing to do upon arrival. Alas, I headed off super early on several occasions, so I got the opportunity to read.
Also, I found going to the gym first thing in the morning near the place I was required to relieve at was another beneficial way to get me within a shorter travelling distance. That was only possible if the local “sweatshop” reciprocated my gym membership.
I left home early on multiple mornings only to encounter circumstances beyond my control and wound up late. Usually, it was traffic. And before you say everyone faces traffic, not like this, they don’t! Sadly, the universe conspired to thwart my attempts at timeliness.
For instance, one morning to get to the gym – and maybe squeeze in some reading – I left home four hours early for a 20-minute journey. The plan was to leave at 5 am for an 8:45 am start. There was a 5:30 am gym class not 10 minutes from the branch I was to work that day. As you may have guessed, I arrived late! And that’s without going to the gym and without doing any reading. Why? There was a truck that had “fallen” sideways and blocked all lanes in one direction. Emergency rescue teams then needed the freeway in the opposite direction to do rescue type activities. Thank goodness for the radio!
Back in those days, there weren’t any mobile phones, so there was no communication capability. You had to rely on the radio to broadcast news of the event or hope others were heading in the same direction and communicated the predicament.
The Universe versus Me
Luckily for me, the truck impacted many people heading in the same direction. But for a time, this type of delay happened to me ALL the time! Even now, going to meetings, I’ll get a phone call as I’m about to head off to being late. It’s challenging to say no when you’re in back-to-back meetings.
In project management, it doesn’t have to be the boss that waylays efforts to arrive late for a meeting. After all, the focus of a project manager is to keep issues from impacting the timeframe, costs or quality of a project. That means there’s always some sort of ‘brush fire’ to fight, figuratively speaking.
One of the things I learnt from my constant tardiness and meditation was that if I listened to my inner voice, I’d get to places when I needed to get to places. I know it’s fatalistic, as in “what’s meant to be will be”, but I believe this to some extent, anyway. But it’s crucial to note that we are not powerless in the exchange.
You see, I believe before we’re born, our souls choose a mission and part that means hitting meeting specific touchpoints. For example, your task is to make a chocolate cake. One of the ingredients needs to be chocolate. You usually get the ingredients by the time you’re 20, sometimes those end up being late too.
Whether you get the ingredients early or late is what you decide when you’re here. Of course, one of your missions might be to do them in a particular order or make something with them. But as long as you get the ingredients, your soul’s purpose is on the right track. Only you listening to your inner guide can say when fulfilment will happen. First, you gotta learn to listen.
Learning
Once I learned to listen to my inner voice, I found I wasn’t being late, I was there “at time” rather than “on time”. Being somewhere “at time” can be translated to being “at the right time”. Several times when going to the airport, I’ve not felt pushed to get moving. On each occasion, the plane has either been late, rescheduled or cancelled.
My learnings have never extended to confidently saying “I’m not packing” 😃. So, today I’m less late, I get impatient when I need to be somewhere early. Yes, no surprise other people don’t like being late! Believe it or not, there have been times when I’ve been pushing my husband to get ready and “we gotta go”, not for any other reason than we need to be somewhere “at time”. Okay, it’s rare, but it happens.
By the way, when it came to the truck traffic event. I learnt more than “don’t fight the universe” I also learnt to let go of my frustration at being late when there’s nothing you can do. It was when I could define the difference between anger and frustration.
Anger is when you could or couldn’t do something to influence the outcome of a situation. Frustration, on the other hand, is when you’ve done everything you can, but it’s out of your control, and nobody else is to blame. It’s like the truck event there was no avoiding being late to work that day.
Today's Cards
The Cards - Being Late Analysis
Carryover Cards
One card carried over from yesterday; Politics moved from Hopes & Fears to Future Energy.
Cross
I’m going to guess that the Distant Past’s New Vision came from the moment I realised I needed to trust my inner voice. Next, I need to specify my inner voice not to frustrate those waiting on me and prod me before that happens.
Consequently, in the Recent Past, I’ve morphed, which is what the Beyond Illusion card is saying. The image has a third eye opening up and the light of clarity emanating from it, showing only recently I’ve evolved. The Goal has always been to work in harmony with my inner self and the world like The Lovers.
It’s only with Trust’s influence that Maturity has happened.
But, uh oh! Future Energy has Politics, possibly signifying that duplicity is still necessary when I’m late and get held up.
Base
Totality is in the Feelings spot and continues Trust’s influence to allow total commitment toward managing late attendances; at least, that’s how I feel.
With others viewing me as The Miser, my Politics aren’t as flawless as I would like to think they are; in truth, I’m not very good at Politics.
Whenever I’m late, Hopes & Fears come to the fore. Firstly, inwardly I Stress and fear arriving late. If I’m late, I get tempted to play Politics and find reasons that feel like lies; I hate lying – lying causes even more Stress. Secondly, there’s hope that I’ve left enough time or that no one has missed me enough to notice I’m not there yet.
Finally, We are the World is in the Outcome, which signals what goes around comes around. This perception is not typical for the card, but maybe being tolerant of others brings about the feeling of solidarity.
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
- Tarot Layouts per month
SEO – There were a couple of back-to-back meetings today, and I kept being late to meetings, and it reminded me of old habits I need to kick.
