Next time you feel like reacting in an abrasive manner to someone, take a couple of deep breaths and decide to act instead. We're wired to react - it's how we make it through the day - but there's just a little more to life than that. Next time you couldn't be bothered being nice to someone - or even replying to their email or message - draw a couple of breaths... how would you feel if someone else treated you with the same disdain? With each little reaction - or, better again, each action - that we take we either make our day - and the day of those around us - better or worse... which would you prefer?

Respect, honesty, courtesy, good old fashioned manners... we live in a world where the little niceties of life are being overwhelmed by texting, emailing, social networking... people thinking that they're connected but, in fact, people who are becoming more and more disconnected from the wonderful, blissful, extraordinary reality of what's before your very eyes in the here and now... people who are increasingly disconnected from reality. People, who, as a result, do all sorts of outrageous things.

Last week's video - exploring the mindful and willful desctruction of innocent life in Paris on November 13th - pointed to the extent to which the perpetrators of such acts were purposefully focused... in a very destructive way granted, but with a purpose in mind nevertheless. On the offchance that I might be repeating myself, let me reiterate the extent to which, when we develop mindfulness, we need to ensure that that pure mindfulness is pointed in the right direction - to ensure that our purpose is right, that it is for our best and the best of those around us.

If you can't get your purpose right or, like many people that I meet, have no tangible purpose, then you'd be better off being mindless - at least you'd make it through the day without doing too much damage to yourself or others.

But, when I see people - normal crazy people - almost running over elderly people to park in a no-parking zone, when I see people shouting abuse at each other in supermarkets or carparks, when I experience the extent to which people simply don't bother to treat others like proper human beings anymore (don't get me started, there's another book in me, believe me) I wish that everyone - and that includes you - could adopt a way of life that is founded on a mindfulness, directed by purpose, that ensures that we all move forward for the good of everyone.

Am I talking about world peace? What about arresting global warming? No, none of that: I'm talking about the little things that we do, or fail to do, in our own little lives... because, just as the Devil can be in the detail, the opposite is also true.