Mindfulness

I am tired of the push for "mindfulness."
I hear it at work, in the media, in the news I read and hear.
My sisters in law live by this invisible mode and some of my children adhere to it as well.
They believe they are being thoughtful-a sort of spiritual worship of all the hands that have touch every single product they encounter.  I honestly don't know how they make it through the day, much less a meal.

I am appreciative of farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, packers, butchers, cooks and people who give us the ability to live such abundant lives. That being said, I do not want to spend my life contemplating the meaningfulness of every single aspect of my life. I don't want to make choices based on agendas. And if I should choose to wear mismatched sock, dowdy sweaters or a silly hat, that is MY choice.

Frankly all this mindfulness strikes me as a rebranding of narcissism. "Ooh look at me, I'm choosing my gluten free cruelty free organic soap" So what? Does it work? If it doesn't, it's a waste of time AND money. And if we are really "mindful" shouldn't wasting energy and materials to produce a substandard product count as NOT being mindful?

Let's apply this to cars. Environmentalists have pushed for measures to make car more fuel efficient. To do so, manufacturers have to make cars more streamlined as well as lighter. This means less metal, more thin metal and plastic. It also means making cars smaller. This wouldn't be a problem if we all had these cars, but we don't. Many of the larger SUV's are so raised off the ground that their bumper level is at the head level of new smaller cars. That means what in earlier generations would have been a mere fender bender will now be an accident with serious, perhaps fatal, injuries. People rant over possibilities of medication and procedures which are far rarer than the fatalities causes by the disparity in size of vehicles. Shouldn't this require mindfulness to either stop insisting new cars be smaller or at least all cars should have bumpers the same height?

Mindfulness goes far beyond this. There is a book out there talking about how you should get rid of all the things in your life that you do not love. So how's that going to work for married couples or large families? Can Mom simply throw away all the laundry? Can Dad donate his lawn mower? Can the kids jettison all the old records and yearbooks from their parents previous lives? I personally believe having to deal with things you may not love builds character. Nobody was promised a perfect life and I don't think individuals should be forced by the nature of "mindfulness" and then false doctrine of perfection to avoid those irregular things in our lives.

I will admit I am more absent minded than mindful. I may have, at times, worn mismatched socks and possibly I've worn some sweater backward. Does that change me as a person because I am less than perfect? Indeed this is the crux of mindfulness, helicopter parenting, cooped up bored kids sentenced to a lifetime of computer screens over the outdoor is an unreasonable fear of being less than perfect. We have to let our children learn to fail in small ways or we risk as adults seeing them fail on an epic level with no possibility of a rebound.