by Mark Schiffman, M.S.
I am the type of person who on the one hand values being on time, but on the other, pushes a lot into my schedule to the point where I am usually rushing from one thing to another to ensure that I am on time. While I am usually not late to too many things that I have to be on time for, I am usually not early either. This is what made what happened last week so ironic.
It was 2:58 PM and I had a client at 4:00 PM. I was on the way to the train station for what according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) website should be a 42 minute train ride – I was actually going to be early! I was just two minutes away and I saw a train pulling into the station. On any other day I would start running as fast as I could down the block and up the dozens of stairs to make sure I would be on time – but today I was early! So I leisurely walked to the train station, happily missing this train for the next one that was scheduled to arrive in 6 minutes. I entered the now empty platform and made a phone call informing the person I was talking to that, “I will have to get off the phone in a minute when the train comes.”
Five minutes pass and the sign says the train is coming in two minutes. Five more minutes pass and I can sense something might be wrong but hope for the best. After five more minutes, I can see the train coming but it stops right before pulling into the station! Five more minutes and my frustration is building – even if it decides to move right now I would still be late. So I called the office and told them that I will be late and that I don’t even know when I will be there!
Then the announcement comes: “There are no local trains stopping at this station. Cross the platform and take the uptown train to the next express stop and take the express train downtown.“ As this announcement was being made, an uptown train started pulling into the station, so a hundred people start running down the stairs and then back up the other set of stairs to make the train. Luckily I made it but even that train was running with delays! So here I am going in the wrong direction, stopped in between stations waiting because of “train traffic ahead,” knowing I was going to be considerably late to my appointment, and my frustration was turning into anger. Anger at myself – “Why didn’t you run for that first train like you usually do!?” and anger at the MTA – “Why are they so incompetent! After all of these years, can’t they figure out a train schedule?!”
I am not sure if other people could notice my anger but I was taken aback as I looked around the train. Around me are dozens of people who are experiencing a similar situation as I was and nobody was visibly angry! Here I am driving myself to anger and everyone else is engaged in light conversation, playing on their phone or calmly reading a book. I took this as a cue to calm down so I took a deep breath and used some REBT self-talk to calm myself down – “Is it logically to expect the MTA to be 100% competent at all times? Is being late really the end of the world?” In the end, I was 30 minutes late, which was unfortunate, but I survived – and on the bright side, I got a blog out of it!
