I'm sure this isn't entirely accurate, but I think it can be analogized to Sherlock Holmes' powers of observation. Everyone sees but they don't observe. They do

I'm sure this isn't entirely accurate, but I think it can be analogized to Sherlock Holmes' powers of observation. Everyone sees but they don't observe. They don't notice details about anything. Mindfulness is like that but more internal. Of course everyone is "aware" of the present time in a trivial sense, but lots of people spend a ton of their time lost in daydreams or reliving old arguments or mindlessly browsing FB or Hacker News. And it's not that that's a bad thing, just that they have no idea what their brain is doing, they just let it go wherever it will. Mindfulness is actually witnessing and understanding your state of mind. I feel like the opposite of mindfulness is when you're driving to work in the morning and you realize you're already there and you have no idea where the time went.