Common Sense Isn't So Common After All

I don’t know everything, but I do know what common sense is. I don’t always use it, but I know what it is. Unfortunately, I feel that I am in the minority when it comes to actually knowing what common sense is.

I noticed that our society these days are lacking of this one important quality in them. They can be professionals, politicians or corporates but that doesnt mean they have common sense built in them. Knowledge and common sense are two different things, each with their own purposes or uses. It is perfectly possible for a person to have all of the knowledge in the world, yet still unable to put it to any good use because of the absence of common sense.

A lot of times the above theory has proven right to me. Yesterday for instance, I was in the lift, three quarter filled with people. Then it stopped at one floor where a gentleman, properly dressed looking like a professional, standing & waiting to step in. And this gentleman by the way, was carrying a backpack on his back.

Here comes the moment where common sense should takes place. Common sense is the thinking process human goes through before he or she does something. For example, let's say a small child is filling a glass with milk. When she sees the milk rise to the top of the glass, she stops filling and puts the milk away. Now, no one ever "taught" her that the milk would overflow if she kept pouring, but she instead used her common sense to figure out that if the container was already full then it wouldn't be able to hold any more. See, you don't need knowledge to display common sense.

Now back to that gentleman & the lift story. Seeing that the lift was already three quarter full, he still stepped in. Okay, there's really nothing wrong with that coz there's still enough space for him. But then, with a wee bit of common sense, he would have taken off his backpack before he stepped in rather than squashing other people standing around him while he make an effort to fit himself in the crowd.

He had a choice to just be "the man in the lift" but chose not to & end up with all sort of cursed names for himself. His lack of common sense has created such an unpleasant & tense ambiance in that small, confined space - especially those squashed victims around him (which includes yours truly). A ride (in the lift) that is supposed to be pleasant (considering it's a ride "home") has turned out to be the ride of repulsion it seems.

As how Robert Green Ingersoll quotes, "It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense".