Common Sense?

Common sense....often times I hear someone say."Don't they have any common sense"? The obvious answer is "No"
Because common sense isn't something someone just has.  We're not born with common sense. It has to be taught and shown examples of. For generations now, it simply hasn't been. Why? I really can't answer that except to  conclude that somewhere over time people just got tired of thinking things out and decided to just do whatever was easiest and damn the consequences.  I've related a story countless times to not only my children, but others who have posed that question outlined at the beginning of this piece.
I dated a gal for a short time many years ago who had a young son. His bedroom was an absolute disaster. You basically couldn't see the floor. I being something of a neat freak apparently intimidated this girlfriend into trying to get her son to clean up his room. She would send him in there time after time to clean up but he would inevitably end up sitting on the side of his bed staring at the wall. You know, that deer in the headlight stare. The girlfriend would say to me "I don't get it. By this age you'd think he'd have enough common sense to see how messy his room is and want to fix it"
I finally gave in to my temptation and sat her down one afternoon for a chat. Her own room wasn't anything to shout about either though she tried hard to impress me with her limited domestic abilities.
I asked her if she had ever...I mean EVER gone into his room and showed him HOW to clean his room? After some thought she conceded that "No, not really "showed" him but told him what to do. Of course for most of his formative years he had only to glance into his Mom's room for the example.
Expecting people to behave in a certain way means that you believe that they may have been taught to, yet sadly that is not necessarily nor even commonly the case. So the next time you see young people or even adults behaving badly and you ask " Don't these people have any common sense"?
Chances are they don't and it's not their fault.

Bob Villoria  is an experienced Sales and Marketing consultant with over 45 years experience who helps business owners get more clients through social media marketing. He is also a personal and business development coach/mentor with an online practice available at RMVCARD.com 
Also a writer of horror fiction.