What is common sense? Perhaps everyone’s common sense is different but to a certain extent there is a reason why it’s called “common” sense. As defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary it’s: the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions.
The other day I was watching the local news and they reported that a man almost lost his life crossing the railroad tracks, while the train was running full speed. What gets me is that people dismiss the safety signs that are clearly posted by the tracks “ Do not to cross”… Common sense would be to avoid crossing the tracks during this time. Just watch the video: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=9470436
Some people seldom use their sane judgement in certain settings. As you can see in the video there are multiple railroad tracks, common sense would indicate there may be more trains passing. It’s imperative to be aware of your surroundings and make good judgements about your actions because the guy in the video was a hair away from death. Like the reporter said, there have been 13 deaths in the past year of people who got hit by the train. If people would pay more attention and make better judgements they wouldn’t be in situations like this.
In the end, I wonder “Is it worth it?” Whatever may be influencing you to take such drastic actions is not worth it in my opinion if it’s putting your life at risk. It’s not like the train will keep you waiting for that much longer! He was too impatient to wait till the train tracks were clear. A bunch of people called this luck… I’m sorry I don’t see it that way, that’s not luck, that’s stupidity working in his favor. I’m happy he made it across but he’s the ultimate decision maker of his actions that almost got him killed.
About a week ago I was a witness to another bad decision made by someone who was just impatient and lacked common sense. Believe it or not this situation also involves a train. I was in traffic waiting in the left lane for the green arrow when I noticed we weren’t moving. The the street I had to turn into was blocked by a cargo train on the train tracks. About a minute passes and the train is still there when a car behind me starts honking when the arrow turns green for the second time, if he had bothered to look to his left he would have seen that we are all waiting for the train to clear the crossing. Not happy that he couldn’t solve anything with his annoying honking, he decides to back up and get in the next lane thats going forward and speeds up to make a U-turn ahead then tries to turn into the same street with no avail because there were other cars in front of him also waiting for the train to move. Finally when the train clears he had to wait even longer because the lane I was in had the right of passage. Many situations like this can be avoided if we all have a little patience so we can make good decisions.
People's common sense can be easily blurred by things like: impatience, liquor, and drugs. These incidences were about people who let their impatience blur their common and good judgement. Like in the video, the man was too impatient to wait for the train to pass, leading him to make the bad decision of running in front of a high speed train. Patience is a virtue, b*tch…. it is something the idiot guy in the car should have bought at the corner store, he could have kill somebody driving like a crazy person!
Please use your common sense people, it’s rudimentary to our survival… If you haven’t read my blog post on survival go read it … right now… I’ll wait till you get back :). In any case, common sense has played a huge role in the well being of human life, so dont lose it (your common sense that is).
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For once I have to disagree with this observation. The problem with the idea of "common sense" is that it is in fact culturally specific. For example if someone jaywalks in the US cars will slow down so as to not hit them. However in Brazil they would not slow down at all (I speak from personal experience and warnings from relatives). It becomes a problem when "common sense" is applied as a means to perpetrate discrimination, and I can give plenty of good examples of that.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I agree that the people in the two examples made undoubtedly very poor decisions. However, that says more about the virtues of patience, rather than about common sense.
I agree that "common sense" is in fact culturally specific. I neglected to mention that piece but the common thing to do is to respect the warning signs at the train crossing. The man in the example is in the U.S. so that speaks to his lack of common sense according to where this took place. As far as your comment on this being more about impatience, my aim was to talk about common sense however, the post took a detour lol
ReplyDeleteP.S. Sorry for the late response, Thanks for sharing your thoughts! :)