The Value of Interruptions: Finding Joy in the Unexpected Moments of Life

Life hands you opportunities disguised as interruptions.

Let me define interruption. It is something that comes into your life that you neither planned nor expected.

It can be good. No child is born according to a schedule but comes when ready. When your child is born (or your grandchildren), your calendar no longer has a say. Life dictates its own terms.

Some are tragic. Calls in the middle of the night that a parent had a stroke (such as my father) wring you out like a wet rag. You never expected that to happen that day.

Yet, interruptions teach us a valuable lesson.

Last week, Vickie and I were shopping for gifts when my phone rang. On the other end is a softened voice.

My granddaughter said, “Can we go fishing today?”

It was not what I expected. We had no plans, but I did know that going fishing was not on the radar.

I said, “Yes, we can go for a while.”

“When?” When a grandchild presses in, the vice grip of immediacy tightens.

I had to tell her we would first get the fishing poles at our house and then go.

About an hour later, after my wife had packed a picnic basket we headed to our daughter’s house. And our granddaughter was waiting.

We got both grandson and granddaughter into the car and headed to a nearby park with a small lake. I knew that fish would, at best, play a game of hide and seek with us, being the middle of the day and with the wind blowing rippling the water.

We got to the lake, and I rigged up two poles and gave brief instructions on casting, an art form that takes more than 5 minutes to explain.

Bobbers hit the water, and we waited. Nothing. Not a nibble. The only thing caught that day was slimy moss.

I knew one truth. When you take kids fishing, you don’t fish.

But again, I did not come to fish. I came to spend time with my grandchildren.

It reminded me of a story told by James Boswell, the famous biographer of Samuel Johnson.

Johnson kept an extensive diary, even as a young boy. In it, he wrote of a fishing trip.

Unbeknownst to the young Johnson, his father, a man of letters and reputation, wrote on the same day. The elder Johnson wrote a single sentence: “Gone fishing today with my son; a day wasted.”

Yet, on the same day, the boy wrote, “My father took me fishing. One of the best days of my life.”

Life peeks out from behind wasted time. One truth shines with clarity.

Don’t mistake small things for insignificant ones.

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld has three teenagers. He observed:

“I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’–I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.’ I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.”

The best times of life occur at inconvenient and unplanned times. When a child takes your hand to cross a busy parking lot. Or when a fishing line lays limp on a mossy pond, and the child beams.

Never let someone, anyone, tell you that interruptions are a waste of time. They are the stuff that makes up life and makes it worth living. Take the time. Ignore the phone, the calendar, and the to-do list.

Perhaps you need a good day of fishing. But take your grandchild with you. You won’t catch fish, but you will come home with a basket of joy.