The Real Reason Some of Us Are Chronically1 Late

Michael Jung

无论是上学上班，还是约会小聚，“不好意思，我迟到了”可能是我们最常听到的一句话。也许我们是那个匆匆赶来、满脸歉意的人，也许我们是那个望眼欲穿、久坐焦躁的人。有的人时间观念很强，大小场合都会早早赶到，对迟到者深感厌恶；而有的人则总是迟到，且习以为常，反而对早到者嗤之以鼻。迟到者与早到者各持理由，据理力争。究竟我们该如何把握好时间呢？

Being late is stressful, but for many, it beats the alternative.2. 迟到是很有压力的，但对于很多人来说，迟到总比早到强。alternative: 供替代的选择。

For a good percentage of Americans, three little words habitually accompany their entrance into a business meeting,3. habitually: 习惯地；accompany:伴随。gym class, dinner with friends, or a date:

“Sorry, I’m late.”

Does this sound like you? Much important work has looked at why some of us are chronically late. The truth is that there are many reasons why people just can’t get somewhere on time. But there seems to be one common thread running through the behavior of chronically late individuals that may be the most universal reason for their perpetual tardiness—and yet it is consistently overlooked:

People are late because they don’t want to be early.4. 但是，习惯性迟到者似乎都有一个相同的想法，即他们之所以迟到是因为本身就不想早到。这可能是他们经常迟到最普遍的原因，但却常常被人忽略。common thread: 相同思路；perpetual: 永久的，永恒的；tardiness:迟到，后文的tardy为形容词形式，意为“迟到的”；consistently: 一贯地；overlook: 忽略。

For the punctually challenged, this very basic motivation drives behavior whether consciously or unconsciously.5. punctually: 准时地；motivation: 动机；consciously: 有意识地。

Most of us know people who are always on time because they hate being late. I fall into this category;in fact, I’m paranoid6. paranoid: 多疑的，疑神疑鬼的。of being tardy. I get to places embarrassingly early, which sometimes requires me to park my car around the corner and wait surreptitiously7. surreptitiously: 偷偷地，暗中。just so others don’t notice the real time I arrived. (Sometimes I think that if I was a ninja, I’d still get to places dreadfully early,8. ninja: 日本武士，忍者；dreadfully: 非常。yet would be comforted by the fact that since I was a ninja no one could tell if I was there.)

Because people like me hate to be tardy, we are always on time.But just as we hate to be late, another cohort9. cohort: 一群人。hates to be early.These anti-early birds really want to be punctual—they just prefer to be right on time.

Wanting to avoid being early, then, is a strong motivation for why many people are chronically late.

When you ask someone why they are perpetually late, they will often inform you that the typical or assumed reasons do not necessarily explain their habit. Even when they try to be organized, consider the time of others, or set an alarm, they still tend to be late.10. 甚至当他们努力变得有条理，考虑别人的时间或者设定闹钟时，他们还是常常迟到。organized: 有条理的，有序的。And they are usually behind by the same amount of time—5, 10, or 15 minutes—late enough that it isn’t detrimental11. detrimental: 有害的，不利的。to their event, but still annoying to those around them. Though desperately wanting to break the habit, the conflicting motivation to not be late or early poses a real problem.12. desperately: 极度地；conflicting: 矛盾的；pose: 造成，引起。

It is hard to reconcile these two competing ideals.13. reconcile: 调和，调解；competing: 相矛盾的，相抵触的。

So why does this second group hate to be early?

There are various reasons. The most common include:

＊ It’s inefficient. Being early requires having to sit around with nothing to do. The waiting time is just short enough that you can’t get into any other project; as soon as you do, the time is up.

＊ They hate the uneasiness of being early. They feel awkward14. awkward: 尴尬的。and uncomfortable waiting. They might even feel as if others are watching and judging them, whether this is true or not. Arriving a few minutes early makes you feel proud and confident, but arriving too early can make you feel foolish. You fear others might think that you have no life aside from this event, and you don’t want people to think that your time isn’t valuable. Take the example of a date: If you get there a little early, that looks great. But if you arrive too early, suddenly you’re worried that you come across as15. come across as: 给人的印象是……，看上去似乎是……。desperate.

＊ There is an opportunity cost associated with getting somewhere early.16. opportunity cost: 机会成本，指为得到某种东西而放弃的最佳替代品；be associated with: 与……相关。Just as someone else’s time is valuable and you want to respect it to be punctual, so too is your time valuable and you’d rather use it productively17. productively: 有成果地，有效地。than wait around inefficiently.

＊ Sometimes you do not want to be early to be polite. You may not want to disturb someone by getting there too soon—say, a friend’s dinner party—so you would rather get there a little late.

While many individuals see being early as a virtue18. virtue: 美德，优点。, many others don’t. Earliness isn’t valued to them; it’s a waste of time.

A 2002 article inUSA Todaydiscussed the cost of tardiness for CEOs. One hypothetical example: If Sanford Weill,at the time the CEO of Citigroup, arrives 15 minutes late to a meeting with his four best-paid lieutenants,19. hypothetical: 假设的；Citigroup:花旗集团，世界上最大的银行及金融机构之一，总部位于美国纽约；lieutenant: 助理官员。it costs the company $4,250, the price of the four employees’ time. (That was in 2002; just think what a similar late arrival could cost today.) Yet, the same argument can be applied to the cost of being early. If those four well-paid employees arrived 15 minutes before Weill got to the meeting,that still would have cost the company $4,250 in wasted time. In both scenarios20. scenario: 情况。, time is money.

It is, of course, impossible to arrive on time each and every time.Since we cannot control external circumstances like traffic and family emergencies, the only way to be prompt21. prompt: 准点的，正点的。is aiming get to places a few minutes beforehand. That leaves us with the problem of motivation: How can an anti-early bird just bite the bullet22. bite the bullet: 忍受困难或勉为其难做某事。and risk being early in order to be on time? (Often, when one gets to a place early, he or she decides, “Next time I will give myself less time to get here.”)

The solution to actually fixing the habit, then, is not to think about ways to be on time but rather to think about how to make being early more valuable. That sameUSA Todayarticle mentions that Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell gets to meetings a little early, and tries to make good use of that time. He says in the article, “I try to get to meetings a bit early so I can see what the mood of the team is and have an opportunity to interact informally before we get down to serious business.”

Reframing that early time as something valuable makes you feel like your time is being used constructively, whether for your own or for someone else’s benefit.23. 无论为自己还是为他人，重新安排因早到而多出的时间，会让你觉得自己宝贵的时间得到了充分有效的利用。reframe: 重新安排。

If you’re trying to motivate someone else to stop being chronically late,remember that while Benjamin Franklin espoused24. espouse: 支持，拥护。the virtues of being early to bed and early to rise, there have always been others who agree instead with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said: “I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.”