Have you ever caught yourself saying, “it’s just common sense!”
We usually say it when someone ignores an “obvious” instruction or does something that seems irrational.
Their behaviour confuses us, and instead of interrogating how our attempt to influence may have fallen short, we place the blame at their feet.
We assume our common sense is the common sense.
But declaring something “should be obvious” isn’t helpful. It’s lazy, and often, a little arrogant.
Because people usually do what makes sense to them.
A failure of “common sense” is usually a failure to see things from someone else’s point of view.
Maybe what we need isn’t more common sense, but a little more uncommon sense?
The curiosity to ask, “What sense were they making?” before we assume they weren’t making any at all.
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