Use Your Common Sense Day

Every day we see complete fails of Common Sense, stupid and fantastic examples of the horror that can occur when someone just… refuses… to think. Sometimes it’s a matter of hubris, people thinking that their over-inflated sense of self-importance can overcome the laws of physics. Other times it’s just a complete failure to take a moment to really think a thing through, and thus do something monumentally stupid.

Let’s take for example the USPS service letter that indicates if you can’t speak English, or fail to understand the letter, to take it to the local post office. How precisely would they know to do that? Or how about the woman who called the police to report that her ex was texting her, a fact she was able to ascertain because it was, and I quote, “In her handwriting.”

History of Use Your Common Sense Day

Use your common sense day was established by Bud Bilanich, a career mentor with a reputation for focusing of being “The Common Sense Guy.” He’s been featured on some of the most prominent TV stations and magazines, and has written 19 books that emphasize how to succeed at your life, and how the application of common sense is absolutely vital to that success.

Common Sense as a concept is ancient, first being codified by Aristotle in describing the raw analysis of the animal mind of the five specialized sense perceptions. This was then carried forward in the Roman interpretation, which presents the concept as ideas and perceptions held by the common man. A sense of the common. Through a long and twisty development, and through many future interpretations, common sense has come to be the knowledge of simple, sensible things… Like not putting your iPhone in the microwave to recharge it.

How to Celebrate Use Your Common Sense Day

The simplest way of celebrating Use Your Common Sense Day is to simply do what’s on the tin. Namely, use your common sense! Take a little more time to stop and consider your options before acting on impulse. Before you decide that something is a good idea, be sure to stop, take a breath, and look it over and make sure you aren’t about to become an object lesson.

Further, to hone your use of common sense, take the day to identify monumental failures of common sense. There are plenty of sites out there that will give you ample resources for determining what true failures of common sense look like. Perhaps by observing their examples you’ll be able to prevent yourself from making them yourself.