It's Thanksgiving Day in the US. Happy Thanksgiving!
I was asked this week what the holiday was all about by someone new to US culture. I started talking before really thinking about it (...don't pretend to be shocked...), stopped, gathered my thoughts, then restarted and did a much better job explaining the traditional meaning of the holiday and what it means to many today - the family stuff along with the commercial.
It got me to thinking, and that's one of the things I'm thankful for today.
After thinking some more I decided this year I'm thankful for distractions, interruptions, and inconvenience. I'll explain. Like many folks, technical and not, I'm pretty busy working a bunch of the time. When I'm working at home (which may or may not mean I put in eight or more hours on site somewhere earlier that day), my children who live at home will interrupt me, distract me, or otherwise inconvenience me. After all, I'm trying to get something done when they come busting into the office with something to tell me or a book to read or a picture they just colored to show me - it's all very distracting.
And yet it's not.
Every single time I find it's precious moment. Without exception. Always. And I find myself cherishing these moments and even looking forward to them. It's not that I don't spend other time with them - I do and we have fun then too.
Surprisingly (to me at least), I get more done with these interruptions than without. Usually the mental break gives me an opportunity to see more forest than trees and when I return to the task at hand I have more (and better) ideas than before.
I'm no good at embedding stuff - here's a link to just such an incident this morning. Emma's battling an ear infection and didn't sleep well last night. She's starting to feel better now.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone.
:{> Andy
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