Mindfulness - Connecting to Excellence in the Moment

No generation of people has had more things available to get in the way of finding excellence in the moment.
We are so busy and distracted by our lifestyle that we are never in the moment. We are always somewhere else.
When we are at work, we are thinking about dinner. At dinner we are thinking about the game tomorrow.
On vacation, we are thinking about work. Watching TV we are thinking about vacation.
Our cell phones and iPods and game stations all create a pseudo-reality around us and take our attention away from where we are and what we are doing. we don't attend to the food we are eating, and jam calories down our throat. On the exercise bicycle we are distracted by earphones and TV screens so that our heads are effectively disconnected from our bodies.
We talk AT our children like objects at a distance, and are advised by experts to schedule time for family meetings and get together's.
Should I need an agenda to talk to my kids about anything?
I was in line to get a sandwich when I experienced excellence in person in a very visceral way today. It reminded me to seek connection in each and every moment to what is going on, to turn off the chatter and the attention traps that divert the senses.
The nice lady at the counter in our college cafeteria was not very well educated, nor very polished in appearance. She was surrounded by movers and shakers of higher education studying deep, profound theory. They were so caught up in thinking elsewhere they had no time to see her and the quality of her work. She was eager to please and was committed to providing the best customer service she could possibly provide. She was fully engaged and committed to her task. She knew what questions to ask and wasted neither words or motion in preparing sandwiches. Her skill and economy of motion were art in motion.
Not wanting to engage with a member of the great unwashed, the ladies in line in front of me made it a point to blurt out their order in a single complex thought-paragraph, fighting to get their words in edgewise so that the lady would not have an opportunity to intrude into their head space. They couldn't wait to get back to their own conversation. The sandwich maker was un-fazed and was perfect in creating their sandwiches which they took without a hint of acknowledging they just shared time and space with another human being. They never saw her.
When it was my turn, she had the opportunity to ask me every questions she want ed to ask. I let her guide me through our process of building a sandwich together. When it was done I thanked her and remarked that she'd done one heck of a job during this lunch hour madness and that I appreciated her service. We shared a smile.
I never enjoyed a sandwich as much as I did this afternoon. I turned off the monitor, unhooked the phone, and just ate the sandwich and attended to every bite and taste. It was perfect.
The nice lady in the sandwich shop reminded me today about where to find excellence in the world. It's all around you, if you will look. Where is your excellence? How do you express it everyday and in every way? Are you open to it in the here and now or are you planning to get it tomorrow or wherever else your attention has wandered?
Ken Long, Chief of Research, Tortoise Capital Management, finance: http://www.tortoisecapital.com/, essays: http://kansasreflections.wordpress.com/