Here's an example of mindfulness in action.
My father-in-law is watching the Olympics. "Hey, Jared, what game is this?"
I look at the TV. There's a basketball-size court with a field hockey-size goal at each end. Women are passing a ball with their hands.
"It looks like handball."
"That's not handball. Handball's when you throw a ball against a wall. I played it as a kid."
"I played handball as a kid, too. This is also handball."
He pushes on with the belief that the game he played as a kid and the game on TV could not possibly have the same name.
Here's the mindfulness takeaway:
While I was *invested* in answering his inquiry to the best of my knowledge, I was not *attached* to him accepting my answer. In other words, whether he accepted my answer was of no importance to me.
And that's the other takeaway:
I suspect his pursuit of holding on to his belief was due to habitual stubbornness, and not any genuine investment in knowing what the game is called.
Seems harmless, yes?
But what about the countless examples of people not examining their belief systems around race and gender and sexual orientation and. . . that result in ongoing harm, marginalization, oppression, and death to others?
Same attachment. Greater consequences.
That’s why mindfulness is important.