If a meeting is delayed, why do people say it has been "pushed back" instead of "pushed forward"?

my guess is that it is pushed back, in priority, on the list of things to.

In language there are often questions like this whose answers are now difficult to track down, but here's my shot at a possible explanation:

The direction isn't a direction in time but a direction in relation to the people doing the pushing. When you push someone or something away from you, you are pushing him/it back.

This probably first came from pushing someone, as in a confrontation. It's forward to you, but they will move backward (if you're lucky.)

Eventually, "push back" would come to be used interchangeably with "push away" and using it to push a meeting probably just caught on in business culture in the same way that sayings like "crunch numbers," "TGIF," or "up and comer" have.

Well, if you're talking about absolute values, yes. But most people describe time as it relates to the present. If a meeting has been delayed, it's been pushed away from your current position in time; in other words, pushed back.

The time for the meeting 'approached' and it was pushed back.

Its only in the US that people say that actually as it is very obvious that time moves forward and not backwards.

Because it has fallen behind schedule.

The word that is normally used is "adjourned", which means "postponed".