Corn Fed Life Blog

3/8/22

I always suspected my husband was late to different events or put off doing projects because he really didn’t care. Little did I know that it wasn’t his lack of concern that was to blame, it was his brain!

Recently I watched a YouTube video titled “Why some people are always late.” The speaker grouped society in to two categories the Time Keepers and the Time Benders. Characteristics of time keepers are a tidy workspace, punctuality, and a level of preparedness to counteract any outside factors that would make one late, such as arriving 20 minutes ahead of schedule to catch the train. However, their counterpart the Time Bender, is a whole different animal. Time Benders are known to have a messy work environment, as they often do not finish a task before beginning another one, work extremely efficiently last minute, and are you guessed it, chronically late!

Yet, time benders can be on time and often are in one special case and that is when there is a deadline with a consequence. They have the knack for being late for social events. No one should get too upset at a time bender for being late for dinner. Most times they are even expected to be late. I caught a few friends of ours telling us a meeting start time that I knew was a half hour early. Sometimes I wouldn’t correct my husband when he relayed me the information, if I really wanted to be on time. If time benders are late for a plane or work though, there are real consequences, and so that is why they can be punctual in certain cases.

To be fair, when a time bender is late for a social event it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t think that it is important. Scientific studies have shown that some people’s brains are wired to keep track of the passing time fairly accurately. Other brains may easily lose track of time altogether and get lost in a task that they deem interesting. However, when there is a deadline and consequence for being late, it keeps snapping the event to the forefront of the Time Bender’s mind. They may not be great at estimating the passing of time, but when a deadline looms it will remind them to keep checking those clocks just to be sure!

When I see my husband whip together an hour long presentation 15 minutes before he has to give a speech, I am in awe of his genius. Though we are constantly late to church or to parties, he has such a warm demeanor to everyone around him that we are quickly forgiven. It is wonderful to begin to understand a little more of the inner workings of my husband, a true Time Bender.