Common sense is defined as a sound judgment on practical matters based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. Common sense is what everyone needs, few have, and none think they lack. BUT WOW — I have met some crazy intelligent people and super successful people with zero common sense.
What you see is what you get – that is what common sense refers to. Knowing the outcome based on some simple fact — is what common sense relates to. But some people just don’t get it. For example, I get an abundance of emails with topics ranging from how to handle man boobs to relationship issues, to you name it. Many of the questions are legit – I can see why they are having challenges. But some leave me scratching my head because the answers are right there in front of their face. With some of these questions, the answer doesn’t take an expert to figure out, such as:
- So I’m dating this amazing woman, and she’s my soul mate. The only issue is that she has a husband and five kids. What I really need to know is how I should handle this.
- I’m killing it at the gym! I just started two weeks ago, where I go three times a week and bang it out for about an hour. I have not changed my diet. I’m at 34% body fat but I want to see my abs. Do you think I should do more crunches?
But this lack of common sense phenomena is not just issues like these — it’s also manifesting in BIG topics and subjects. I look around and see that common sense is being tossed right out the window. It’s crazy because common sense has been a critical component of our survival as a species since the time of cavemen.
I guarantee that there was some caveman who left his club in his cave when all of a sudden he saw a saber-toothed tiger walk in. It was dark, and he couldn’t see the tiger. His club was in there, but did he go in? HELL NO, because his common sense told him that he’d be that saber-tooth tiger’s hors d’oeuvre.
So just like this caveman demonstrated, common sense is the ability of a person to think about things rationally and make decisions accordingly. And yes, it’s becoming more and more uncommon because people don’t generally think about things from the ground level. Their beliefs are superficial, and their approach toward various circumstances and life is impractical. We may not have to deal with saber-tooth tigers anymore, but we still need common sense to survive.
Here’s how to improve your common sense:
First, try to remove yourself from the situation and think about it. Think about how easy it is to give your friends, co-workers, and family advice – it’s easy when you don’t have a horse in the race, right? But when it comes to ourselves, we have a more challenging time letting common sense lead the way. So in terms of making decisions for yourself, remove yourself as much as possible. You will make a better decision if you can take emotion out of the equation.
Next, don’t over-complicate things. Keep it stupid simple! KISS – this applies when over-analyzing and overthinking. Along with this, you need to follow your instincts. We HAVE to trust ourselves (aka your instincts). We get the gut feeling we might not want to accept, but we must listen to and trust ourselves.
Okay, the next tip is to divorce yourself from your reality. Understand that your reality might not actually be the ‘real’ reality. We tend to think of or do things related to ourselves in our little worlds. Often, these preconceived notions are in our heads where we’ve built up something or believed something has happened that actually didn’t. This concept may be a little abstract, but what we think is real is actually not. It’s in our head, and identifying it and then divorcing ourselves from this preconceived notion will benefit us when identifying and assessing how to use common sense.
Last, realize that being wrong is okay. We are all fallible. Have you ever been with someone who under absolutely no circumstances admits they are wrong? This place is dangerous because decisions are made based on being ‘right’ rather than on common sense. When this happens, we aren’t accepting the fallibility of ourselves. We will do XYZ anyway just so we don’t have to admit that we were wrong, even if we know we are wrong or shouldn’t be doing it. This situation is horrible, but it is something many people do.
Common sense – where has it gone? Are people really this clueless in this day and age? We have used common sense to fight lions and tigers, but now we can’t get out of our own way. The lack of common sense boils down to ego and winning. People today place so much stock in being right all the time, in winning (even when there is nothing to ‘win’ or ‘lose’) that they have lost touch with one of the most basic human functions—common sense. Gentlemen, let’s all agree to commit to improving our common sense and using it more & more in our daily lives.
