Tidsoptimista: Una benedizione o una maledizione?

‘Tidsoptimist—a person who’s habitually late because they think they have more time than they do’.

Had I only known this word earlier, everything would have made sense to me. But I guess I didn’t have enough time to Google it because I was too busy missing my deadlines and disappointing others for not showing up on time.

Tuttavia, un tidsoptimista è una sorta di ottimista della vita. Un tidsoptimista è assolutamente ottimista riguardo al tempo. Vede le ore come secondi ed è per questo che è così difficile essere realistici riguardo alle scadenze e ai diversi compiti da svolgere.

Essere ottimisti in generale è una buona caratteristica, ma essere ottimisti sul tempo è un po' complicato. Se da un lato non è bene essere eccessivamente ansiosi di essere sempre puntuali, dall'altro non è nemmeno bene essere eccessivamente ottimisti.

Ma ci sono anche dei lati positivi e se ne parlate con qualcuno, converrete che è davvero difficile classificarlo come cattivo o buono. I tidipendenti lo sanno bene. Io lo so molto bene.

I’ve almost lost my job because I would always be late, making lame excuses, and you cannot fool people for all eternity. Sooner or later, they will realize that you’ve got some issues regarding time and when that time comes, you better be good at explaining it to them.

La mente di un tidsoptimista sembra un eterno campo di battaglia dove il tempo è il vostro compagno e allo stesso tempo il vostro peggior nemico. You think you are rocking it until you realize that you’re late again and you have to face all of those disappointing faces waiting for you to apologize.

But the thing is, we’re not doing any of it on purpose. We really try to arrive on time but somehow we are prevented from doing so, either because we get occupied with something else or because we think there is more time than there actually is.

Vogliamo fare tutto allo stesso tempo

Iniziamo a fare una cosa e se ci chiedete di aiutarvi, passiamo immediatamente a voi e poi torniamo a quello che stavamo facendo. Ma tra un passaggio e l'altro, di solito perdiamo la cognizione del tempo ed è allora che iniziamo ad andare nel panico, sapendo di averlo fatto di nuovo.

La più grande maledizione dell'essere tidsoptimista è che tutto deve essere fatto in un certo ordine. Quindi, se la vostra routine mattutina prevede di lavarsi i denti, vestirsi, fare colazione e preparare il caffè, dovrete attenervi ad essa, a prescindere dalle conseguenze.

We simply cannot skip making our coffee because it is a part of our ritual and no matter how late we are, we just can’t fight the urge to finish all of what we’ve imagined beforehand. And we know it’s silly and dumb but that’s just how we function.

Pensiamo sempre che ci sia abbastanza tempo

If you ask an optimist what time it is, he will tell you that there is plenty of time instead of giving you the exact information that you’ve asked for. It is because we are sure that there is plenty of time, even though we have no evidence of that.

But it’s deeply ingrained in our being and fighting it only means making it worse. Sometimes it’s good to be stress-free and think that you won’t be late anywhere because time is your friend. It’s good to be able to relax and chill in your free time, not being anxious about all the things waiting for you to finish them.

But when it comes to deadlines, this kind of thinking simply kills us. And we realize it when it’s too late. We will be thinking that we still have time until someone comes to us to say that we fucked it up again.

Le scadenze sono il nostro nemico mortale

Some people are afraid of death but tidsoptimists are afraid of deadlines. There is something about the feeling of being limited to finish something when someone else tells you or when it’s supposed to be so.

Deadlines feel like the biggest destroyers of our chilly world and we will never understand why people bother so much to arrive everywhere on time. Wouldn’t we be much more creative and passionate if we didn’t bother so much about time?

Perhaps the restriction of time is something that kills our joy inside but at the same time, it is something you can’t function without (at least, that’s why they say). So, when someone gives us a deadline, we try really hard to remember it, even though we know we’ll fuck it up again.

But there is this tiny spark of hope that maybe this time we will finish it right on time and not five seconds before or after the deadline. And we pray to God that He gives us strength and a release of anxiety while we’re on our journey to accomplish this ultimate task of finishing something in time.

Alarms simply don’t work for us

People who invented alarms probably didn’t have in mind a tidsoptimist. They couldn’t predict that people like me would find alarms totally useless. But who are we to blame them.

So, dear alarm people, I’m sorry to tell you that alarm sounds for tidsoptimists are just reminders that they have enough time to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast and make coffee. Of course, they have enough time until they realize that they don’t.

And that is the beauty of being a tidsoptimist. You’re optimistic till the last second and you won’t let anyone contradict your beliefs because you’re sure of yourself (for the time being) and your hope never dies.

You tell yourself that you won’t be late this time, even though you know you’re fooling yourself and others. And then you have to face the dark side of being a tidsoptimist and that is missed deadlines, late arrivals and facing the disappointment.

Ma, d'altra parte, per un attimo si ha l'impressione che il mondo sia diventato un posto migliore quando si trovano persone della propria specie e ti regalano quel sorriso che significa che ti capiscono.