Our lives are built on a structure of common sense. We didn’t learn it from a book, we learned how to live when we were kids — at the kitchen table, in the yard, watching our parents. You don’t take more than you need, you return what you borrow in better shape, you look both ways, you keep your word even when it costs you. It wasn’t clever. It was plain, practical, and shared.
That is what made it common. We had common experiences — chores that mattered, time outside without supervision where we had to settle our own arguments and judge our own risks, parents who had known scarcity and taught us not to waste. Common sense isn’t about IQ. It’s practical wisdom: seeing what is plainly true and doing what obviously needs doing.
Today common sense isn’t very common because we’ve had less of that shared, practical experience. We’ve outsourced judgment to screens that tell us what to think, and we’ve softened consequences so much that kids can grow up without ever really feeling cause and effect. We’ve also confused information with wisdom. Knowing a thousand facts about the world is not the same as knowing how to balance a checkbook, fix what you broke, or apologize without an excuse.
It can come back, because it was taught once and can be taught again. It returns when we do real things — let people fail small and learn big, fix things instead of throwing them away, talk face-to-face with neighbors we disagree with. We don’t need a new philosophy. We just need to remember the simple questions we were raised on: Does this make sense? Would it work if everyone did it? Am I leaving this better than I found it?
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” – James 1:5
Being About The Journey 