How do I detect an event without pausing until one is detected

I'm making a LRC chatroom with rednet and I need to know how to do what is shown in the title to be able to still print messages from other computers, and os.pullEvent() just pauses it until that certain event happens.

parallel.waitForAny() and name your parameters. Since you aren't very specific, I can't give you dummy code to model it after. Look up the wiki. Type "parallel" and it will give you a basic rundown of how to use it.