We worry about the stock market or where the next war will start, as well as the cost of our medicine or food. With so much draining our energy and distracting our attention, it’s tempting to isolate and disconnect from the world. We shut down and shut out the ever-breaking news. We might pull away from people who are not coping as well as we are and find ourselves avoiding social interactions. We glue ourselves to a screen in a corner to pacify our nagging thoughts. Many of us have needed to shield ourselves from chaos and uncertainty in the world and from people around us because it all can truly “get on our nerves.”
But hopefully, despite all that we tune out to keep ourselves sane, we don’t ever lose our sense of openness, curiosity, and wonder. If we close down too much (even with the most protective of intentions), we could close down the best qualities of ourselves.
But how in this cynical, testy world can we stay open?
In these times, when I have noticed my own depletion of responses to anxiety, outrage, or sheer fear in the people around me and around the world, I have turned to role models and looked “for the helpers” (as Fred Rogers suggests). To further understand how to cope, I have studied research about what human traits are best suited for living with uncertainty and drastic changes. People who are more open and willing to be curious and wondrous about everyday encounters tend to find more meaning and hope in times of loss or uncertainty. They find something amazing in the little, fleeting things that pop into their lives—and love to be wowed by learning, ordinary interactions, or even by birds or random pockets of beauty.
The Importance of Openness
From my personal and professional observations, I would like to give a big shout-out to the human trait of openness. Openness is one of the “Big Five” personality traits. This quality in ourselves gives us the ability to try out new experiences and see through different perspectives. This capacity allows us to be receptive, inviting moments of learning as well as unexpected moments of awe and wonder. This trait helps our mental and social agility, creativity, and problem-solving when faced with challenges. For example, one study showed how openness and awe helped students build relationships in multicultural settings.
People who are intentional and proactive about staying open to unexpected moments of joy and wonder tend to cope better with uncertainty and change. They welcome little surprises that take their breath away and often share those moments with others. Even a fleeting experience of wonder is contagious. For example, while working with elders with dementia at assisted living communities, I’ve noticed how certain staff members bring out the wonder in the residents with genuine and spontaneous comments: “Oh, wow—did you see that white butterfly land on your shoulder?” “That’s amazing how well you remember those quotes from Star Wars.”
Poet Mary Oliver asks us to be “willing to be wondrous” in her poem “The Ponds.” Are we willing to see beyond our worries and look up and notice what is right in front of us? Many of us are starving for a bit of fun, magic, and amazement—even if for just 30 seconds.
Capture Those Little Moments
Below are a few common examples of pleasant surprises that I’ve personally witnessed over the past three months. (I recommend keeping a log of these little surprises, such as synchronicities, signs, bursts of insight, and unexpected joys.) These sudden little moments can change the whole vibe of the day or tone of the room at work, in public spaces, at health care facilities, and at home:
- A surprise act of kindness: An employee received a bunch of red roses after the birth of her first grandchild. Everyone stopped what they were doing and clapped and hooted.
- A surprise animal visit: A neighbor’s curious tuxedo cat suddenly popped into our office and entertained us by flopping on the rug and showing us his belly. We are still mystified about how he got in.
- Surprise bird songs: Those persistent chickadee mating songs create a happy background soundtrack for doing tedious spreadsheets.
- A surprise greeting card arrived in the snail mail from a former neighbor.
- A surprise hawk feather landed in front of a nursing home resident in a wheelchair out in the courtyard—how did that get there for him to see?
- A surprise song came on the radio, mysteriously offering a message for a colleague (“I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor from 1978).
- A surprise burst of wind through the window blew paper plates all over the room and miraculously stopped everyone from arguing about work schedules.
- A surprise comment in a conversation with an unsmiling coworker reassured me he understood me better than I had imagined.
How Little Unexpected Moments Can Help Us, Even at Work
Recently in The Conversation, I discovered a fascinating article that described how certain types of work disruptions can help unleash creativity. This piece discussed a study published in 2023 that explained exactly what I had realized—that brief, unexpected moments of wonder can make us more resilient and better able to live with uncertainty. The research, based at the Hamburg University of Technology, explored different types of disruptions at the workplace and their influence on employees’ performance. The researchers were wondering how these interruptions could be harnessed “to boost innovation at work.”
This illuminating study demonstrated how certain types of interruptions helped foster creativity, concentration, new perspectives, and a calmer mental state. Essentially, the researchers labeled these helpful types of interruptions “surprises.” In contrast, according to the researchers, there were “intrusions” that were generally unhelpful and negatively distracting. “Surprise” interruptions that were helpful often encouraged mindfulness and attunement to the present moment, switching our attention outward from our inner thoughts (self-referential thinking) to the world around us. However, “intrusions” had the opposite effect by adding to anxiety, pressure, and a frazzled lack of focus.
The researchers reported: “By examining the effects of these interruptions on employees’ performance, we can identify which ones have the potential to boost innovation and how organizations can best manage them.” Regarding the positive surprises as helpful interruptions, the researchers found that “individuals exposed to such interruptions generated 58% more ideas than their uninterrupted peers in the three weeks following the disruption. This boost in creativity is attributed to continued thinking about work and maintaining work goals during the interruption, which enables idea incubation.” In other words, we can sometimes find a solution to a problem by noticing something (unrelated) that spontaneously happens in front of us. Eureka!
Indeed, we can be thinking hard about a work task and enjoying a surprise such as our cat jumping on our desk—at the same time. Tapping our own openness and sense of wonder, we’re able to reset our thoughts at the “back of our mind” while engaging with something else in the front of our focus. (This reset of our thoughts is part of the default mode network, DMN, studied by neuroscience.) Similarly, when we walk in nature, garden, or gaze at the sky, we can pause an idea or a problem while our focus is on what we are physically doing—but when we come back to that problem, we bring a fresh perspective. Human beings are wired to wonder about the big things while we do the smaller things, even in our routines, in hands-on activities—and that’s a blessing when our mind feels like it could explode.
So, may we enjoy a few good interruptions in our daily mix of work and everything else.
