On time

In South Asian cultures, it is quite common to arrive late for events, such as weddings. The arrival time for event invitations are often ignored and padded with a few hours to generate the “real” arrival time. The invitation time is typically the time when you start to get ready for the event.

The real rationale behind why we (South Asians) are always late is because we do not want to be early. If you come early to an event, you may be stuck helping the organizers finish some last minute tasks, or trying to kill time playing games on your cell phone, or deleting people from your phone directory.

The South Asians are not the only ones who suffer from “being late”, it seems the African people are similar.

The government of Ivory Coast created a punctuality contest to challenge people to arrive on time.

Narcisse Aka, a legal adviser aged 40, who has just won the country’s hallowed Punctuality Night competition — and a £30,000 villa — after he consistently turned up for work on time while his compatriots took a more relaxed attitude to punctuality. As the slogan of the competition goes, ‘African time is killing Africa; let’s fight it.’

Arriving on time is so easy yet me make it difficult for us. Think about the last time you arrived late at the airport to catch your flight, you could make your life easier if you had arrived an half hour early. Otherwise, you may end up like Jerry Seinfeld, who quoted:

You see? Never be late for a plane with a girl. Cuz a girl runs like a girl - with the little steps and the arms flailing out... You wanna make this plane, you've gotta run like a man! Get your knees up!