It's funny how our minds work. Sometimes the most innocuous thing can trigger a cascade of thought. Case in point: a few weeks back my neighbor told us he and his partner were going away on vacation and asked us to keep an eye on his house. He left us his keys and was off.

Now at any other time this would not warrant a blog post. Not much to see here. But when we hung up his keys it hit me immediately. My neighbor's key chain had the saying "Mind the Gap" on it. I have since found out that this popular UK phrase is a reminder for people as they step on the subway in London to be mindful of the dangerous gap between the edge of the platform and the train.  My mind took it from there.

Why would this phrase resonate so much, you ask?  Well, to me these three words distill the art of the pause. Mindfulness at its core is all about reminding ourselves to pause and rest in awareness of the present moment. We always have that opportunity to stop and start again.

As superintendents, we have many opportunities to mind the gap. When we are having a difficult interaction with an employee, a tough chat with our greens committee, or when we are agonizing over a tough financial decision, we have the chance to pause, and step out of our habitual reactions and rest in the pure awareness of the present. When we take the time to mindfully pause, we open up space for a more thoughtful course of action.

Minding the gap is equally applicable to our personal lives. How many times do we react in anger or frustration to a situation at home? Often we immediately wish we had acted differently. When we use the split second pause to interrupt our knee-jerk reaction, we create the space in which to choose a more compassionate response.

On a personal level, minding the gap can lead us to a deeper place within; a place of restful solitude and retreat which only we know exists. Think about the sense of connectedness we feel when we stop to watch the sunrise as we are changing holes in the early morning. Think about the incredible feeling of wonderment we experience when we observe wildlife in its natural surroundings, or that feeling of contentment when all the bullshit and drama of the world momentarily drops away and everything appears well in your life. These moments are always available to us -- but they do require that we pay attention to all the moments of our lives as they are happening.

Now if our friends from across the pond don't mind the gap they can run into some serious difficulty:

But here in the colonies we have the chance to see things a bit differently. If we choose to use our gap carefully, then we have a unique opportunity to change our lives for the better.