We live in a very unique time. A time when too many too often accept unproven allegations as absolute truth. It is also a time when a long-term understanding of proper ways to act, influence, and educate has been replaced by what can only be termed as infectious poppycock.

Can we restore common sense as the driving force in everyday interactions?  

Common sense plays a crucial role in both professional and personal interactions. As has been said in the past, “What’s right is right. What’s wrong is wrong. Most often there is very little room in the middle. If it feels wrong, most often it is. If it feels right, most often it is. Therefore, let your conscience be your guide.”  

Here are a few examples of the lost art of common sense: 

• Don’t buy what you can’t afford despite what you are told. 
• It’s not always a good approach to “air” a grievance on social media. 
• There are always two sides to every situation. Before you speak or act be sure you understand both. 
• Attorneys are not always the best first choice to settle a dispute. 
• Unless you hear a “yes”, never assume it has been given. 
• “Free” doesn’t necessarily mean “free”. Someone somewhere still has to pay the cost. 
• Just because something worked five or ten years ago does not mean it will work today. Don’t continue to do the same thing and expect different results. 
• If a law says that something is “illegal”, then it is “illegal” for a reason. Respect that and follow the law. 
• Even in politics, there should be some level of truth. 
• Bad investments are not always the fault of others. 
• Because you may know doesn’t mean others know. 
• You don’t have to have an agenda to perform an act of kindness to someone. 
• Advanced education is meant to expand your thought process and inspire you to validate what you hear or read, not simply to influence you to blindly follow what a professor may say or offer. 
• Though you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. 

In today’s challenging environment, it seems that respect for what is fair and right has taken a secondary position. It apparently no longer matters that the essence of common sense in any endeavor is to ensure fairness, truth, and goodwill and that it benefits all parties. In essence, if you are being told that things are OK or that it’s someone else’s fault that you are where you are; yet, you see things differently with your own eyes, stop believing what you are told and go with what you see. It is not appropriate that all think alike. It is more vital that all think together. Only then can it effectively guarantee that common sense once again pulls the best ideas from all views toward achieving a greater position of reasonableness in all society. 

Horace Walpole said, “To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom; and the best philosophy is to do one’s duties, to take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one’s lot, bless the goodness what has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is.”  

You don’t need advanced educational degrees, philosophical training nor to be granted special privilege to embody common sense. All it demands is that one simply exercise its power in a fast and productive manner. It is not technical. Its use simply helps one avoid confusing activity and most often brings forth accomplishment.  

Harriet Beecher Stowe once said, “Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.” Common sense, use it wisely and effectively if you desire to experience life to its utmost excellence.