You know, everyone could get on with everyone else effortlessly - life would be a pleasure, stress would be no more. All that would be needed is for everyone to have the presence of mind to behave appropriately and gently alert those who weren't doing so to desist. Now, we know from decades of research that most people don't possess that presence of mind. However, the fact that most people are mindless is no excuse for us not to get on with doing what's needed to live a mindful life ourselves and, by doing so, promote the possibility - however slim it might be - that others might slip into the same effortless flow.

What does this mean in practice? Many years ago, the managing partner of a law firm asked me how she could manage conflict - the answer was simple: manage the inappropriate behaviour before it gets that far. Every time we fail to let normal crazy people where you draw your lines, you give them an inch... and they always take a mile. Every time you turn a blind eye to small mindlessness, you water the seeds that grow into big mindlessness - and, then, people get hurt.

As we've been saying the last few weeks in our videos, we're all too often afraid to say explain to those around us as to where we draw our lines - what's the right thing to do and what's not. Some of the leadership teams that I work with construct ground rules whereby they agree to support each other's efforts to do the right thing and to challenge each other when they see the wrong thing being done. Yes, it's easier when everyone in the team subscribes to the idea, less easy when you're a lone wolf.

The fact is, though, that we are lone wolves - with the exception of those with whom we are intimate, those we love and those who are truly close to us, we live in world where nobody cares - because they're obsessed caring about what other people think about them! That means that you should never be afraid to say just what needs to be said - in the gentlest possible way - to encourage, cajole and, if necessary, demand appropriate behaviour. What have you got to lose? Or, more importantly, what has everyone got to gain - yourself included - from your efforts to cultivate a better life for you and those around you?

Thursday June 11th, 2015 - Dublin

Take normal people out of their familiar surroundings and they completely lose any remote sense of sanity that they might have had in the first place. This is particularly noticable where I live: holidaymakers, removed from their normal routine, out of their habitual comfort zone, lose even what passes for common sense.

In the last couple of weeks I've entertained myself watching more than one wealthy businessman, no doubt accustomed to parking their monumental 4x4s in their habitually reserved spot, attempt to park in half-empty public carparks. One hapless chap attempted to line up his BMW in six different places before abandoning it in a disabled spot. At the risk of being politically incorrect, perhaps he ended up parking in the right place!

Tourists - French tourists, in French cars on French roads - go around roundabouts the wrong way or simply stop in the middle of the road. Last week, our daughter's best friend rearended a car that had suddenly stopped dead in the middle of a long straight stretch of road. When the police arrived, the motorist explained that he'd jammed on the breaks because his GPS was telling him to do two different things at the same time!

Motorists are bad enough - pedestrians are worse... particularly pedestrians with young children. Have you ever noticed how parents use their children to test how safe it is to cross the road? The younger the child the better. Preferably, the child should be in a pushchair which can be simply wheeled out into the path of oncoming traffic to test the waters!