“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
- Albert Einstein
In life you have to card in, learn the rules of the game, play your part best and then have to card out. You first sketch dreams and goals you visualized of. To make them happen, you have to operate in a certain environment with sets of rules. To learn the rules of the game and to play your part successfully, you have to first define the goal as a whole then, subsequently and more importantly, in sections. The sections work as roadmap to accomplish the goal. On every footstep, you have number of alternatives and each one of them offers something different. This creates a situation. There always lies an option which is the best way to respond to a situation. Through Common Sense we learn how to act in our best interests. We do and we learn. This creates learning instances. We learn from past events of our life and life of others as well. Sometimes we are able to translate sometimes not. Hence commit mistakes. We fail to translate them into a successful decision because of both, inside-out hitches and outside-in hitches and result in limited or zip success. We rectify our mistakes by learning to translate them into life. Continuing this progression suggests that something derived from Common
Sense leads to the emergence of a new level, what we call wisdom. Practiced Common Sense becomes wisdom. Never mistake Common Sense for wisdom. One is knowing the right question and the other is the right answer. Wisdom is sum of learning through the ages. Common Sense is sound judgment not based on wisdom.
How this really happens, when you look back, is always a story full of lessons. The lessons tested, verified and validated not only by you but by many others as well. There could be many instances of same situation which are the different routes to same Common Sense. You succeed or fail but learn the same thing, approve the same wisdom.
The same thing happened to six mothers.
One fine morning their little boys decided to make tea for their mothers. They found a big saucepan in kitchen; they pulled a chair to the counter, opened the cupboard and pulled out the tea, milk and sugar pots, spilling them on the floor.
They scooped some of the tea leaves into the bowl with their hands, mixed in milk and added some sugar, leaving a milky trail on the floor. They were wet with milk and were getting frustrated.
They wanted this to be something very good for their mothers but it was getting very bad. They didn't know what to do next, whether to put it all into the oven or on the gas burner and they didn't know how the stove works.
Suddenly they turned back and knocked the egg carton to the floor. Frantically they tried to clean up all mess but slipped on the eggs, getting his dress white and sticky.
And just then they saw their mothers standing on the door. Big tears came in the boys' eyes. All they did wanted to do something good but they made a terrible mess. They were sure a scolding was coming.
Let’s see the response of every mothers originating from their Common Sense.
Mother 1:
Common Sense: Empathy, Love and Care
The mother just watched him. Then, walking through the mess, she picked up his son, hugged him and loved him.
Mother 2:
Common Sense: Discipline and orderliness
The mother yelled and punished him for spilling the things and putting himself on hazard.
Mother 3:
Common Sense: Learning
The mother taught the boy not to experience the things alone and when you make a mess, you have to clean it.
Mother 4:
Common Sense: Joy
The mother proposes: Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the flour before we clean up?
Mother 5:
Common Sense: sense of family and togetherness
The mother says: Just smile baby! Come, I will show you how to prepare it. Be with me and experience.
Mother 6:
Common Sense: Sharing and Understanding The mother asks how the experience was.
The mothers kept on practicing their Common Sense. The time passed in pinch. Their children are grown ups and have their own personalities and thoughts. One day, mothers thought what they learnt from their motherhood? What is the wisdom with them that they can handover to next generation for being better mothers? They tried to understand why their children could become something and why they could become something not.
This simple comparison, again indicates towards golden rule, categorical Principle, law of reciprocity, the utilitarian principle, Descartes rule, Risk aversion principle, trustworthiness and care.
Wisdom is the enciphering of Common Sense. Common Sense is the deciphering of wisdom. The Common Sense of mothers could be enciphered in various rules and laws and these rules and laws could again be deciphered into concrete Common Sense.
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Wisdom is the enciphering of Common Sense. Common Sense is the deciphering of wisdom. |
Someone can have tons of experience and no wisdom. Wisdom results from integration of experiences with Common Sense. Common Sense results from integrating situations with wisdom. Common Sense practiced i.e. wisdom takes us beyond the struggle of deciding what the Common Sense is now. It's established through wisdom.
You may decipher the wisdom of mothers' into Common Sense by ensuring right to fair treatment and justice for the child. The fairness and the justice the mother thinks would have filled her childhood to empower her to learn responding in a better manner (Golden Rule). Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative translates into a recommendation to mothers that if the action you are taking for the child is not right for everyone then it is not right for your child as well.
This way the mothers can translate these treasures into Common Sense. Mothers can see what to and how to apply that in various aspects of a growing child i.e. physical, mental, social/emotional and spiritual (Please see table 2).
You can learn how the wisdom of the world could be translated in your life and your Common Sense be generalized and related to the wisdom to strengthen them and to decipher them for your well-being.