This week 2 of my character flaws came into focus and provided some harsh lessons. After various near-disasters and narrow escapes, I finally showed up late to a flight and completely missed it. I budgeted too little time to get from Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan to get to JFK Airport, didn't send the boarding pass to my personal email like I normally do so I wasn't ready to go through airport security, costing me minutes, and then a sneaker deodorizer that I had in my bag set off some alarm bells for the TSA agent causing my bag to be checked, losing valuable minutes in which the door shut at the gate I was supposed to get to just minutes before I showed up a little later. This needed to happen. I have been way too lax in arriving for flights and important events, such as meetings, parties, get-togethers, trying to time it just right so I arrive just in time, not wasting even a second. I needed to be punished for such recklessness and have the punishment sting so I could remember not to be so late. Even thinking about it seems silly......I had a flight taking off at 9:45PM frm JFK, and I left my office in Hudson Yards at around 8:00PM. Theoretically it's possible to get on the subway at 34th St. and Penn Station, get on the E line, go all the way across town through Queens, switch to the Airtran, get to Terminal 8 (American Airlines), go through TSA security, sprint to the gate, and make it before the doors close 10 minutes before the flight's departure time (9:35PM in this case) AND have my luggage with me during all of this. It's too much to expect of me and to demand myself NOT to run into any unforeseen events like the train running late, or getting off at the wrong stop, or TSA being even more difficult than they normally are.......I had almost been enjoying the adrenaline rush that comes with just barely making a flight on time and reveling in the fact I hadn't wasted any time, but all those times I barely made it was just good luck; the one time I do miss the whole thing is going to cause some serious consequences, and it's not worth it. There's not an exact way to describe what this problem is......it's more specific than tardiness because tardiness can be caused by being lazy, or forgetting schedules; I KNOW when I need to be there and hurry when I do get on the move, but it's a "fear-of-being-too-early" disease, and I need to get over that psychological hurdle.
Also, I lose a lot of stuff in weird places, especially at hotels, on planes, etc. It's caused by rushing out of a place without being careful to check if I have all my belongings, and then a lot of times just totally forgetting all the things that I've brought with me. My mom says I'd forget my head sometimes if it wasn't attached to my neck. Numerous times I've left dodgeball or heavy exercise without something I brought with me because a.) I don't put everything in a bag, so it's not just one big item I need to remember, and b.) I'm so excited and on cloud nine about dodgeball, all I can think about is dodgeball and ignore everything else going on around me. My mom asked me today if I would leave my child behind if MJ and I had a baby, and I resoundingly said no......I haven't yet forgotten real live people and just forgotten their existence, like forgetting to pick them up or something, but.....yea, gotta fix the carelessness problem. Especially now that I have expensive stuff with me like fancy smartphone and wedding ring (I've already lost it before and by the grace of some almighty power I was able to get it back!) I gotta pat myself down to make sure I have everything, and also before leaving a hotel room or some space where I'm not coming back, check the surroundings one last time in a "Final sweep."
It's important at my age still not to fall into bad habits, like running with bad form (MJ says I run too heavily and not with my core, although what she doesn't compliment is I'm trying to stand straight up while walking and running nowadays to maintain good posture!) and also to not rely too much on cell phones, touch my face too much, use swear words, etc. Older people like my parents often make excuses that it's too late for them to change their habits because they're used to and have been doing it all their lives so they can't fix it anymore; I'm not so sure. Certainly I haven't lived as long as them, and I do have some bad habits that I haven't fixed yet, but I tend to think that it's never too late to make a change.
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