Common Sense is Just a Myth
Jan Johnston Osburn
Career Success Coach, Resume Writer, Bio Writer, Federal Resume Writer | Empower Your Possible ?
The Myth of Common Sense
Maybe I’m not the smartest person in the room, but I take pride in my ability to solve problems using my common sense – except for multiple choice tests.
I can ace essays all day long but give me a multiple choice exam and I’ll bomb it.
Last week, I was discussing an outrageous situation with a colleague. You know those situations that leave you scratching and shaking your head in disbelief.
I said, “Common sense is not so common.”
Then he put a new spin on the term common sense for me. To his way of thinking, the whole concept of common sense is illogical. He wondered how common sense could be common when we are vastly different people.
So I wondered…
And pondered…
Then I realized he is right.
How can common sense be common?
If we accept that common sense is our fundamental ability to perceive, understand, and make a common judgment on the right thing to do, it seems odd that we would believe there is a phenomenon called common sense.
Trying to get people to come to the same conclusion seems like a battle that won't be won.
Here’s Why Common Sense Will Never Be Common
IT'S THE WAY WE ARE RAISED
Then throw diversity and culture in the mix. Any insight and awareness to real-time issues are in direct correlation to our past experiences.
Our shared learning systems provide a framework for problem solving and for our behaviors in everyday life. What may be a simple fix for one may be a foreign concept to another.
KNOWING AND DOING ARE NOT THE SAME THING
Let’s say you want to lose
weight.
You may know that pasta has a high carb count and if you eat it daily, you’ll likely pack on extra weight.
But even with knowing that, night after night you eat pasta for dinner.
You end up gaining ten pounds.
So knowing what causes weight gain doesn’t help you if you don’t act on what you know. Seems like common sense but all of the intelligence in the world can't always help you.
Plus...
OUR EMOTIONS BETRAY US
Our heart and mind frequently go to battle and our heart wins more often than we care to admit. Our common sense is betrayed by our impulses and emotions. Humans have an ongoing conflict between impulse and intelligence.
And finally...
As Jim Taylor writes in Psychology Today, "Perhaps the biggest problem with common sense is that it falls prey to the clear limits of personal experience. Or, we don't even have any actual experience in the matter and rely simply on what we believe to be true or have been told is true.”
I guess one good thing you can say about common sense is that as we age and gain more wisdom, we’ll figure out how to apply our experiences in life.
Or, at least we hope.
Engineer at Portage District General Hospital
8 年Common sense is commonly uncommon. Does that make sense?
Dedicated professional, striving to provide the best employment experience possible, Human Resource Management graduate.
8 年Spot-on, Jan! While people evolve, mature, and experience things at a different pace, it is a fallacy for us to expect a uniform response to any given situation. Thank you for the insight.
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8 年Great article Jan! I totally agree and have said it for a few decades, there is nothing common about common sense and I loved the way your client described it, we are all different people.
Hospitality Leader - Author
8 年Jan, John Ryan just commented on my post about the word "logic". It's only logical if I think like you. It's only common, if we are all common. One common thing is tags not working from the app. Common sense would tell LinkedIn to fix that, logically.
chicken whisperer?voice-in-the-wilderness?the thinking man's circular knitting machine mechanic
8 年There is a lot of discussion these days about "emotional intelligence". It seems to me that what many of us call common sense, could also be called emotional intelligence. "Emotional intelligence" may be a better description of this thing that we call "common sense".