It appears that when I try harder to get somewhere on time, other factors plot against me, such as traffic, traffic lights, refuse collectors, you name it. Anyway, aside from this, I was sitting in traffic on the A1 between the A57 at Ehrenfeld and the bridge at Leverkusen a few months ago, for around 45 mins, and used this time wisely to prepare one of my lessons. Sometimes being in a ‘negative’ situation makes you think differently about the world around you and, ironically, the frustrating, negative backlog of traffic which was partly responsible for making me late – even though I’d left deliberately early – turned out to be a positive event. Had I not been sitting there, I wouldn’t have had the chance to quickly skim the chapters of the ‘True to Life’ students’ book; had I not been worrying about being late, I wouldn’t have found the page about ‘Time’ so interesting to look at (perhaps). All I know is, one ‘negative’ event enabled a positive one to grow from it. My students, albeit difficult for them at first, were tested with the exercise in class, yet the material was really worthwhile for them and I am content with what I feel they’ll take away from that day’s lesson. This also led to a great discussion about time and deadlines: “are they necessary?”, “would we operate as effectively without them?” etc.. It also reminded me of a situation in the past when a stressed client of mine took out their anger/stress on me because they thought I hadn’t submitted my work by the promised deadline. So, was it the deadline’s fault that the client was stressed or that I had to deal with a difficult situation? I don’t think so. People offer deadlines; we accept them. We don’t always need to, especially if they are unrealistic. The fact is that the client had a client who set a deadline; she accepted it. She then set me a deadline which I accepted. The truth, in fact, is that I didn’t miss the deadline. I sent my work inside the agreed time; however, the client’s computer decided not to present her with it until the day after – how very sweet of it! Had the client actually given me a deadline with a buffer period then her stress would have been halved, as would have mine. You see, deadlines are not the problem, it’s us who create them. I do find it interesting how we get so hung up on time. It’s as if one little stray minute will destroy the whole operation – maybe it will, but it doesn’t have to, surely.
Anyway, that was my rant for today, no doubt boring all zero of you readers out there. Off to town now – hope it doesn’t take too long to get there…
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