It was toward the end of the afternoon. The couch was comfortable, and the lobby silent as I waited to meet with a man I once served with in the Army over coffee. We had run into each the previous month, and he stated that it would be good if we could connect. Since leaving the Army in 2023, I have learned something about those words—you know the ones: we should get together sometime.
My experience in the military was that such phrasing is more a directive than wishful thinking, and is usually accompanied by a calendar invite soon thereafter. Since reentering civilian life in 2023, I have learned that those words are more along the lines of a ubiquitous, often pithy, nicety. It’s like when someone asks how you’re doing. The expected response is a variation on “fine.” Rarely does one really want to know. We just say these things out of social habit.
There I sat. Five minutes after our agreed-upon time passed. Then six, seven, eight. The clock kept moving and I remained the only one in the lobby outside the coffee shop. Thoughts like “traffic must be heavier than usual,” or “he probably got out of the office a few minutes late” went through my head. No big deal. These things happen. People often end up running a few minutes behind. It happens to me too. Then 12 minutes past our appointment time, I texted to ask if he was on the way. The reply came: he was still at the office, which is close to a half-hour drive away. In that moment I knew my former colleague didn’t value my time. So I drove home. After arriving back at my house, he texted to ask if I was still at the coffee shop and ready to meet. Having been stood up, my mind was not in a place from which I could serve him well, and I don’t like to meet with people just to engage in shallow chatting.
I would like to say this was an isolated incident, but I have found that close to half of the people who ask to meet either fail to show up or ask to reschedule at the very last minute, seemingly without thinking through the impact on my schedule. The most surprising thing of all: it’s almost always a fellow veteran. It’s like we take each other’s time for granted.
In the military you wouldn’t dare stand up someone who outranks you. I rather imagine in the civilian world, you wouldn’t stand up someone who is at a much higher level of influence. For example, if someone like Jordan Peterson offered to give me 30 minutes of time, I’d jump through flaming rings of fire to be there. Of course I’m not Dr. Peterson, but I agree with scripture that preferential treatment is not something to embrace. If I ask for your time, and you agree to give it to me, I will be there. If running late, I will call ahead to let you know. It’s a matter of my personal integrity.
Many others share that belief. But too many miss moments that could provide tremendous value because the time and attention of others is something to be taken casually. I shared that sentiment in direct fashion last year with a friend who asked for a conversation to talk about his long-range strategy of military transition, then failed to show up.
“This isn’t to beat up on you, but you probably wouldn’t have ghosted a Colonel yesterday. I say that in love, as an example of how it’s so ingrained in us that to be ‘good’ officers, we leave all else in life as tertiary. We forget that we joined the military in order to support our lives. It doesn’t take long to socialize to norms that our lives exist to serve the machine.
We put our families and our desires entirely to the side. The one day you wake up and you’re out of uniform. The machine has moved on, and no one on the outside has any clue—or gives a damn—about what you did up until the day before yesterday.
It takes deliberate effort to start laying meaningful groundwork to thrive in the next chapter, especially for people like us who don’t want to be government workers for the rest of our lives.
Summoning the line from Gladiator, what you do while in uniform echoes in what you’ll do afterward.”
This friend is someone I have a lot of admiration for. He apologized. We rescheduled and had a great conversation a few weeks later. As I told him, how we comport ourselves in the seemingly small things indicates how we’ll handle the big things.
How others perceive you is a function of your habits. Take the time to discipline yourself to steward them well.
Dr. Chase Spears 