"Why do they call it common sense when it is so rare?"
Lucky for you I had an epiphany yesterday and my aha moment answered the question, what is common sense? The first clue to the answer is in the sign above? And just to make it even clearer here is my personal simplest clearest definition of logic....
Brilliant, huh? That's it, common sense is nothing more that using logic. So then the next great question is....why is common sense (logic) so rare?
It's because we are not so much thinking beings as we are feeling beings. We mostly make our decisions based on emotions and feelings..
We all like to think of ourselves as being logical. Sorry guys, we are all out to lunch on that one. Here is the truth...
And when it comes down to a show down between logic and our feelings it is no contest..
The truth is we are moved to take action by our feelings and then justify our decisions with logic. So feelings first and then logic! We want to feel good about our choices so its important to us that we can find some logic to back our choices. Need some proof?
First, think of a bad choice you made in your past? Next, ask yourself two questions...
1) What feelings was I experiencing when I made the bad choice?
2) What logic did I use at that time to justify my decision?
When I tried this on myself, I was surprised and disappointed in myself that I had let my feelings lead me to do something I later regretted. However, at least I came to understand why I sometimes do stupid things.
Here is a simple fun example of my childhood stupidity
When I was a kid one of our favorite summer time activities was to go play at the river. This drove mother nuts because she was always afraid we'd drown or hurt ourselves being unsupervised.....
And that saying above was one of her favorites. Being kids of course that's what we would do. We would jump off the bank into the river. Logic said no, it could be dangerous. Fun, excitement and peer pressure said...hell yeah! And as they say, 'it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt' which of course is what happened when one of my buddies broke his leg.
So why did we do it? The same reason people get into bad relationships even though logic gave them plenty of reasons to not do it. Feelings and emotions ran over logic like it was pebble on the road. Until it was too late and then came the pain.
So what's a person to do? That's epiphany number 2!
When you make decisions based on your heart or a gut feeling you are basing your decision on emotions and feelings. When you make a decision based on your head, it is from logic. Here's when it's best to use each one....
So the next time you are mad, frustrated or depressed please don't ever trust your gut feelings. That's the very time you need to rationally think it out. Then when you are feeling strong and happy is the perfect time to decide on a new venture (or relationship) by trusting your heart.
Finally, why don't we use our heads more often (common sense)? It's because it takes no effort to act on emotions and feelings but thinking is hard work. We are all a little lazy if we can get away with it. That's why they created vacations and recess. We would sooner have fun than think. We would sooner do most anything than think.
All that being said, there are times when feelings should precede logic. It just wouldn't be much fun to always be logical and employ common sense in all of our choices. Fun is a big part of what makes us human and makes the price of living worthwhile even it isn't logical...
I hope you enjoyed this article as I had fun writing it. And if you did please share it with others. That would make my day! Now the logical and most common sense thing for me to do is to return to my regular work....however, my feelings are over taking my common sense....
P.S. Keep this in mind, if you want to get people to do things appeal to their feelings first and then give them logic so they can feel smart about doing what they really want to do anyway.
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