the importance of being mindful

Family ties had classified my 'religious background' as catholic, so in school when it came to the subject of 'religion' we were separated in catholic, evangelic and 'other'.
maybe to avoid cross-religion brainwashing.
or to maintain the brainwashing within a specific 'faith'.
or both - is my guess.
those belonging to the group - 'other' - had one hour of 'hanging out' or a so called "empty-hour".
i used to think of my lesson more as a bible-study.
as you wouldn't 'learn' about "religions", but you'd be taught whats written in the bible, and what it means - for Catholics, so you'd know what you are supposed to do as a 'proper' catholic.
well, more of what would happen to you if you don't.
it felt like, to have the questionable 'privilege' of getting to know Catholicism you HAD to be catholic, like an exclusive club where you make sure you are among same 'thinking' people, how very christian....keeping diversity strictly separate doesn't embody understanding and mutual respect for each other, now does it?
thank god that that's changing.
ok, now back to buddhism, whereas the basic principles are fairly straight forward and easy to grasp, it is an entire different task to live up to it in your everyday life, especially considering the diverse lifestyles in present times.
(..won't mention the credit crunch here, rather leave that to politicians for excuse purposes)
i used to think when you meditate you must maintain a 'thoughtless' mind.
kind of relaxing your neurons..
but knowing now, thinking like that seems really juvenile.
if you try to empty your mind, what happens is you actually contemplate 'emptiness', so you ARE still thinking.. and that is what its really all about.
you have to think things through to get a clear head.

we all can incorporate a little mindfulness to our daily stress...and make it seem less.
if we are conscious of what we create, consider others around us a bit more and just a little acknowledgment for events, even as banal as a car giving way, and the gesture of a thank-you-wave.

problem is: not everyone thinks the same, so you will always come across someone who won't be considerate and that really blows.

we all are very 'mindful' when we strike disappointment, we complain, we dwell, we blame, like there is no tomorrow...somehow everyone finds 'time' to focus their mind fully on aggravation.
the reason why being 'positive' seems such a struggle sometimes is that getting angry is just to easy, we never have to 'force' ourselves to get mad. it almost seems 'natural'.
but nevertheless we have the ability to be mindful.

to me mindfulness is just like water.
an element in your life you can utilize as lifesaving entity such as drinking water.
or comfort and pure joy as in a swimming pool or soothing bath.
though it takes effort to make it save to drink or gather enough to fill the bath.

uncontrolled however it will drag you away, and if you don't consist of the knowledge how to swim and there's no-one to help, drowning will be unavoidable.

But at the same time you can't do without it, you'd die of thirst.

thank you, and good night.