Thursday night. That weird night of the week where everyone’s drained but still pretending to be productive.

Dinner was done. Dishes were semi-handled. And like satellites breaking into separate orbit, we all drifted to our screens.

* I was texting with one eye and watching the game with the other.

* My boys were in another battle on Xbox.

* My daughter was in the middle of recording a TikTok, keeping up-to-date on the latest trends.

* My wife was locked into some true crime docuseries that probably involved a husband with a secret basement.

The house was quiet. Not peaceful quiet, more like “we’re all here but miles apart on different screens” quiet.

And then it happened.A blink. A pause. An interruption.The Wi-Fi died.

Cue the Chaos

“DAD! It kicked me out!”“Is the internet down??”“I was about to find out why he killed her!!”

In mere seconds, my living room became a tech support line and a mildly hostile therapy office.

A Moment of Pause

I approached the router like a priest at the altar, whispering silent prayers to the bandwidth gods.

And then, just like the trusty signal, I paused. Not because I fixed it (I didn’t), but because something shifted.

My youngest wandered into the kitchen and started drawing. My teenage daughter flopped onto the couch and, brace yourself, started talking. To me. My wife lit a candle and opened a book.

And I… I exhaled.

The silence wasn’t empty. It was full.Full of crayons, candlelight, and the sound of our own voices.

For the first time in a while, the house was still enough for me to hear my own thoughts and they weren’t crazy. Not fully, anyway.

It felt like someone had unplugged the noise inside me too.

The Things We Miss

I started wondering what we miss when the hum of screens fills every space.

Not just the big things: milestones, long talks, surprise laughter… but the small stuff.

* The sideways glance that turns into a grin.

* The story your kid tells that starts nowhere and ends with “and then we saw a lizard.

* The shared silence that says, I’m good just sitting here with you.

It’s not that screens are evil. They’re just easy.And when life’s busy, “easy” becomes the default.

An Accidental Gift

We didn’t plan it. We didn’t schedule a “tech-free night.” But we’d stumbled into one. And honestly? It was extraordinary.

Hours later, while the Wi-Fi rebooted and the world resumed its usual buzz, I kept thinking about what happened.

The Pause PrincipleThere’s a leadership idea called The Pause Principle.

It’s simple: In a world addicted to speed, sometimes the smartest thing you can do is pause.

Pause long enough to notice. To hear. To choose something other than the default.

That night, we didn’t power through. We paused. And in that pause, something rare happened: we connected even more. Not through effort, but through absence.

Try It

You don’t have to wait for your internet to fail. Pick a night. Flip the script.

Power everything down. Light a candle. Burn the popcorn. Let someone cheat at Monopoly and pretend not to notice. Sit in the quiet and see what shows up when the noise disappears.

It might just be the sound of connection coming back online.

Cheers,

Will

PS: If you liked this letter, you may like Dad Mode In Hard Mode and Team DJ.

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