In Secondary School, everyone knew I was notoriously late to school every day. It didn’t help that I was the school prefect in charge of punishing the latecomers to school.

My mum would drop me off at the school gate and I would send a junior student or a friend to take my bag to my class while I stood at the gate dishing out punishments to those who came after me. Crazy, right?

I should be punished... and I was punished most times. But I still had to do my job.

“Why was I a chronic latecomer?”, you ask. More still, why would my High School teachers task me with such responsibility? Were they not tired of seeing me coming late to school? Maybe they gave me the responsibility so I’d step up my game, change my life and start showing up early to school. How wrong could they be?

Was I not tired of receiving the punishments and floggings I got for coming late? Well, I was but that wasn’t enough to convince me to arrive earlier.

You see, I lived quite a distance from school. Kilometre-wise, it wasn’t too terrible but when you factor in the unnecessary traffic jams during the morning peak hours, you can easily spend more than an hour on the road.

Morning assemblies at school started at 8:30 AM. Once the morning assembly begins, you’re considered to be late. I usually arrived between 8:45 AM to 9:00 AM and if something is seriously wrong, then I might get to school later than that. In my dictionary, that’s early enough.

Classes started at 10 AM, so no matter how late I was, I still made it in time for class. That was my priority. I never really liked those assemblies anyway, so it wasn’t a priority for me to be present. Besides, even though I came early, I wouldn’t be able to attend them because I’d still be outside punishing the latecomers.

I know what you’re thinking about now: I’m trying to justify my despicable trait, embracing tardiness. YES! If I don’t justify it, who will?

My teachers wanted me to be in school by 7 AM! and at the very least by 8 AM. That would require me to leave the house by 6 AM, which meant waking up by 4:30 AM to 5:00 AM. Why would I do that to myself? It made no sense to me. It still doesn’t. I would rather sleep my complete 8 to 10 hours of sleep and get that menial punishment than kill myself just to please people. I saw no point in sacrificing my sleep for nothing. On the other hand, though, there were times I’d have roles during the morning assemblies and I’d definitely do my best to arrive at school early but on ordinary days, when I know it’s not going to matter, I don’t kill myself.

What am I trying to say here? I’d rather be considered “late” than waste my time on something that I didn’t consider worthy of my time to please people or appear to be the “punctual student”.

What my teachers didn’t know was that I got home every day by 9 PM and even 10 PM on some days. They didn’t know that on some mornings, water wouldn’t be running in the estate, and my sisters and I would have to go on a scavenger hunt to find water just to take a bath in the morning. They didn’t know that my mum was the only parent we had and bore all the responsibilities of two parents. There was no point in her waking up by 5 AM just because I have to be in school by 7 AM doing absolutely nothing! The woman had other major stresses in her life.

So, you see, my “lateness” as they saw it wasn’t the same way I saw it. In my eyes, I was in school way before classes started and that was what mattered.

Maybe you’re trying to see things from my lens now, understanding why I arrived at school fifteen minutes late every day.

But would you believe me if I say I probably have no solid excuse for why I was late to all my morning classes in university?

“What kind of person am I?!”, you wonder.

In response, I’ll tell you that I’ve grown up to be a person that just doesn’t care for being punctual if it’s not important.

“Isn’t missing the first minutes of a lecture important?” Maybe, maybe not!

You’d find me at the school cafeteria having breakfast at 8:25 AM when my class at the other end of campus starts at 8:30 AM. Breakfast is a priority for me and that’s on period! Breakfast was more important than those first few minutes of everyone sitting down and the prof cracking a joke to start the day. I’d have to be out all day learning and doing homework, I needed fuel in my body.

And yes, I’d walk in unashamedly at 9 AM and make my way to the front seat.

Meanwhile, I know people that would skip a whole class if they woke up late or something. I reason that they don’t want to be embarrassed by being late. It can never be me.

My actions are not tied to what others are thinking about me. That’s their cup of tea. Even though class is ending in thirty minutes, you’ll see me walking in and even up to the front seat. I never allowed tardiness to stop me from doing something and that’s the point I’m trying to drive home.

A lot of people have tied success with being punctual and while punctuality is a good trait to have, for me, I see it as a “need-to-apply” trait.

For example, if I’m playing the guitar in church, I have to be there way before church starts to set it up. If I have an interview, showing up 10 to 15 minutes is my go-to rule. But if I’m attending a wedding occasion, what am I doing there with the event planners? Did they ask me to tie ribbons? If there’s a major event where I’m only a participant, what am I doing there when they’re still setting up?

It’s all relative, you see. Because you want to be a “punctual” person, you’ll go and be killing yourself over being punctual at everything.

If I have a dental appointment by noon, I’ll be there no earlier than 11:55 AM. My time, too, is precious. I’d rather spend those extra minutes doing my own thing than sitting bored in a waiting room.

I’m not telling you to be like me. This is another thing to address another day. Don’t be influenced by everything you see on the internet. I was giving you small gist about how I don’t like wasting my time on things I don’t think are worth it.

All this to say, my time management is centered around my activities and not people’s opinions of whether I’m late or not to a place.

I decided to write this on my way home from work today. My manager permitted me to clock in at a later time if I spent extra hours on any day. I felt so good last night disabling all my alarms and even better this morning waking up after a good sleep.

Today, I got to work by 9 AM instead of 8 AM. Would you say I was late to work?