A lot of people look at common sense as something very simple, but what they may not know is that it can be the gateway to smart and great decisions. In this age, a lot of people focus so much on complexities as a result of advanced technologies and whatnot, that they forget the simple, yet powerful things like common sense. The truth is that there are many problems that are facing humanity that their solution is not far from the application of common sense - which is simply the ability to make practical and logical judgement through the application of basic reasoning. When you learn to apply your basic reasoning to the issues of life, you will be surprised how easy they will become.
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One of the major undoings of many is that they approach the complex things of life with a complex approach. One of my teachers when I was in high school many years ago once said that "if you cannot explain a topic in a very simple term that a kid can understand it, then you do not understand the topic yourself." When a question is set for example in mathematics, you will see something like "simplify this equation," which means that you should break down the complexity and find a solution to it. In life, the solution to a problem might just lie in the simple but highly overlooked things.
It is worthy to note that at the fundamentals of simplicity is the act of focusing on what truly matters, while removing the complication and complexities of life. This is where common sense comes in; it provides the platform and the framework to apply basic reasoning and logic towards proffering solution to the questions of life. When a challenge arises, there are times that you do not need anything complicated but the very simple things to life to solve it. The power of common sense cannot be overemphasized. If you are hungry for example, it is your normal reasoning that will tell you that you need to eat food, and even when you have brought the food, you will put it in your mouth and not any other opening.
I remember some years back, when I went to visit one of my uncles in his house during the vacation. He produced cocoyam flour so I helped in the production. He would peel the cocoyams, boil them in large pot, then sun-dry them. When they are dried, he would grind them to powder and package them. In one of the days, we finished spreading the cocoyam under the sun to dry, which normally takes about 4 days to dry. On the 4th day, we brought them out for the last time to take some sun before packing them in a sack for grinding. My uncle went out, so I was looking after the cocoyam.
A few minutes after he left, he called me on phone to help him run a quick message in about 3 streets from the house. When I was about to leave the house, common sense told me that I should pack the cocoyam into the store house. I did not feel like it because it was more work on me. However, I listened to my reasoning and packed it and left. Adorably, while I was at the place where I would run the errand, it started to rain heavily and there was no one in the house. Imagine if I had left the cocoyam under the open field, the rain would have beaten it and we would have started the whole process again. I simply applied common sense because the season was rainy season and rain cannot be predicted. In life, when you apply common sense, you will see that the challenges you would have been running around for will be cheaply solved.
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Everyday we live, we are often opened to opportunities that will require us to apply common sense - from our families, to our work place, even in our interaction with people. What matters in life is the result you have been able to come up with, not the complexity of the task that you undertake nor the hardness of what you are doing. Someone that uses an easy way to arrive at a solution is better than someone that puts their entire soul into the task without getting the result. For everything that you want to do, you have to ask yourself if there is an easier and simpler way to get it done. If there is, then nothing stops you from employing it.
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