Humans are really bad at estimating time. So it may just be consistently bad time estimation born out of optimism. The solution is still to double the amount of time you expect things to take so that you're closer to the mark.
Humans are really, really bad at lots of things, but we usually learn ways to compensate, particularly if it's important. Someone like myself who struggles with being late (due to optimism, exactly as you said) absolutely knows that they have this weakness, because it happens constantly and causes all manner of friction and problems. If you don't make any serious attempts to compensate and be better, you're just demonstrating that you don't care that much.
I’m always late to things because of optimism and I compensate by considering anything up to 10 minutes late as on time. My friends have learned to just assume I’ll be late.
Does that count?
What I think is worse than being late are thr monsters that show up on time to a party. Like wtf who does that.
But it’s far more better to time everything just right so that one arrives at said meeting right on time, no later nor sooner.
I think living in Finland has conditioned this type of attitude of not being too early(for fear of wasting time waiting) or too late (fear of being rude). One thing that helps significantly is to know travel times(by bus,car, etc) and allocate rough estimate to them. Luckily most Euro countries have good public transport to make planning ahead less stressful.
> But it’s far more better to time everything just right so that one arrives at said meeting right on time,
This is really really not true for parties. The polite thing to do for a party, as long as it is not a dinner party, is to be at least 1 hour late. Nobody expects guests earlier than that. It’s the unspoken rule.
For dinner parties the usual 15 minutes late is on time.
Ah, perhaps in the other corners of the world, but in Finland we do not play such "games". That is, if you invite someone over by 17 pm, it might mean by 18 pm, or might not. Here, if you invite someone at 17 pm, whatever the cause, that is the target one should be aiming for. Some think of our culture as too direct or blunt, but in my mind ambiguity and misunderstandings are a root cause of much misery. :)
Traffic means I'll arrive to my bimonthly boardgames night somewhere between 15 minutes early and 30 minutes late. And that's before my forgetfulness and insufficiently alarming alarm practices kick in!
You routinely have 45 minute swings in amounts of traffic, and you can’t know in advance what the traffic is going to be like? That seems insane to me. Sure every now and agai there’s an accident or road works, but for it to often take 30 minutes longer, or 15 minutes less seems bizzare to me. Or is it a case of you can leave and be there 15 minutes early, or you can wait 30 mins and be 30 mins late due to traffic? In that case, you’re making he decision that you’d rather be late.
