My parents had just a couple of house rules growing up, two of which were: always invite someone to your birthday party if they invited you to theirs, and always be on time.
These rules, along with the others, can be summed as "Always be a mensch." A mensch can be a lot of things, but in our family, it boiled down to being decent to people — and being on time is a huge part of that. Incorporating my parents' guiding philosophy with the realities and responsibilities of being an adult can be a struggle at times, but by god, I will not be caught dead rolling into a 7 p.m. dinner at 7:10. I am a Punctual Person and I absolutely care who knows it! And since I've spent a decent portion of my adult life trying to make my parents proud (in this one very specific way), I'm going to share exactly how I do it: