A little boy was known to be clever for his age. What he lacked in physical stature, he made up in quick thinking. While he was playing one day, he was accosted by three big boys who demanded he hand over his belongings. He hesitated, and then slowly stood up. One of the boys came closer and said, “Are you deaf? We said to hand over your belongings!” The little boy backed up grammatically and drew a line in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. He looked the ring leader right in the eye and said, “Now, you just step across that line.”
The leader didn’t hesitate for a second in responding to this challenge. He stomped defiantly across the line and demanded, “Now, what are you going to do about it?” The little boy smiled and said, “Now, you’re on my side!” Horace Greeley said, “Common sense is very uncommon.”
John, a woodcutter, worked for a company for five years, but never got a raise. The company hired Bill and within a year he got a raise. This caused resentment in John and he went to his boss to talk about it. The boss said, “You are still cutting the same number of trees you were cutting five years ago. We are a result-oriented company and would be happy to give you a raise if your productivity goes up.” John went back, started hitting harder and putting in longer hours, but he still wasn’t able to cut more trees. He went back to his boss and told him his dilemma. The boss told John to go talk to Bill. “May be there is something Bill knows that you and I don’t.” John asked Bill how he managed to cut more trees. Bill answered, “After every tree I cut, I take a break for two minutes and sharpen my axe. When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” This question hit home like a bullet and John got his answer.
Josh Billings remarked, “Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.”
One day, a wise man’s disciple asked him what it took to obtain wisdom. The sage led him to a river and plunged his head under water. After a few seconds, his anxious follower began struggling, afraid that he was going to drown. But the wise man continued to hold his head under water. The student started struggling even harder. Finally, the wise man left him. ‘When your head was under water, what did you want most?’ ‘To breathe,’ the frightened boy answered.
“Well, there you have it. This is exactly how much you must want wisdom.” Victor Hugo observed, “Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.” A young boy entered a drugstore phone booth and the druggist overheard the following conversation: “Hello, is this the Smiths’ residence… I would like to apply for the opening you have for a gardener… What’s that, you already have a gardener? …Is he a good gardener? Are you perfectly satisfied with all of his work?…Is he not doing anything that you would like to have done…Do you plan on keeping him?…I see…Well, I’m glad you’re getting such excellent service. Thanks anyway. Bye.”
As he left the booth, the druggist remarked, “Johnny, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I know it’s none of my business, but aren’t you the Smiths’ gardener?” To which Johnny replied, “That’s right. I just called to find out how I’m doing.” Josh Billings again said, “Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.” A man who had been quite successful in the manufacturing business decided to retire. He called in his son to tell him of his decision, saying, “Son, it’s all yours as of the first of next month.” The son, while eager to take over the firm and exert his own brand of leadership, also realized what a big responsibility he was facing. “I’d be grateful for any words of advice you have to give me,” he said to his father.
The father advised, “Well, I’ve made a success of this business because of two principles: reliability and wisdom. First, take reliability. If you promise goods by the tenth of the month, no matter what happens, you must deliver by the tenth. Your customers won’t understand any delay. They’ll see a delay as failure. So, even if it costs you overtime, double time, golden time, you must deliver on your promise.”
The son thought about it for a few moment and then asked, “And wisdom?” The father shot back: “Wisdom is never making such a stupid promise in the first place.” W. Somerset Maugham remarked, “Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.”
There is the story of the chicken farmer whose land was flooded virtually every spring. Even though the floods caused him horrendous problems, he refused to move. When the waters would back up onto his land and flood his chicken’s coops, he would race to move his chicken to a higher ground. Some years, hundreds of them drowned because he couldn’t move them out in time.
One year after suffering heavy losses from a particularly bad flood, he came into the farm house and in a voice filled with despair, told his wife, “I’ve had it, I can’t afford to buy another place. I can’t sell this one, I don’t know what to do!”
His wife calmly replied, “Buy ducks.”
Common sense is complying with your instinct. Being able to see things as they are and creatively solving problems naturally. I believe that almost everyone has basic common sense. Common sense is simply the ability to make the right decision.
In 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead decided to move to a town that had four things: a good school, a Catholic church, a doctor, and an opportunity. They wanted to open their own pharmacy. They eventually chose Wall, South Dakota, as the perfect location. To others, however, Wall seemed to be in the middle of nowhere-somewhere between the Black Hills and the Badlands.
The first year was a tough one-thick dust, intense heat, and strong winds. In their desire to move on to a more welcoming place, tired, throat-perched travellers rarely stopped. Then, Ted and Dorothy came up with an idea. They made a sign that read: FREE ICE WATER AT WALL DRUG STORE. The sign became something of a novelty. They made more signs and put them farther and farther from Wall – eventually, as far as other countries of the world.
All druggists, of course, made “free” ice water available for their customers. But nobody else had thought to advertise the luxury. Eventually, some 4000 to 6000 customers a day stopped at Wall Drug Store. Albert Einstein said, “Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.”
According to Descartes, “Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.” He went on to say, “Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” A Persian proverb sums it up: “One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.”
Remember the greatest of all riches is just plain common sense.
Shalom!
NB: First published November 2014