Have you ever looked at something happening around you and thought…
Seriously? Where has common sense gone?!
Because lately, I feel like I’ve been asking myself that question more often than I’d like to admit.
And not just about little things, either.
The recent election results here in California got me thinking about it again. I hear people complain about the same problems over and over, yet sometimes the choices being made don’t seem to line up with the changes people say they want.
Now, I’m not about to turn this into a political debate. People have different priorities, different experiences, and different reasons for making the decisions they do.
But it sparked a bigger question for me.
What actually IS common sense? And why does it sometimes seem so uncommon?
Because I see this at work, too.
There are moments when I watch someone approach a situation and wonder how they arrived at their decision. Sometimes I feel like the next logical step is practically waving its arms in front of them.
And yet… somehow, we end up somewhere completely different.
I’m sure we’ve all had those moments.
But the more I thought about it, the more curious I became.
Is common sense something we’re born with? Something we learn? Something we’re supposed to develop as we get older?
And here’s the question that really caught my attention:
Can you actually teach someone common sense?
Well, I started digging.
And what I discovered made me rethink the entire question.
First, What Exactly Is Common Sense?
When I think of common sense, I think of being able to look at a situation, understand what’s happening, and make a reasonable decision without someone having to explain every little step.
It’s practical thinking.
It’s noticing what’s going on around you.
It’s recognizing that your actions have consequences.
And it’s being able to connect the dots.
For example, imagine you’re trying to carry several grocery bags into the house.
One bag is obviously overloaded, and the handles are stretching.
You could continue carrying it exactly as it is and hope for the best.
Or you could recognize what’s probably going to happen and redistribute the weight before everything ends up scattered across the driveway.
That’s the kind of everyday judgment I associate with common sense.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Not everyone agrees on what’s obvious.
And apparently, researchers have been curious about that, too.
Wait… Common Sense Isn’t Actually That Common?
This was probably my favorite discovery while researching this article.
In 2024, researchers Mark Whiting and Duncan Watts published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examining how much common-sense knowledge people actually share.
They analyzed responses from 2,046 participants evaluating 4,407 claims.
The researchers looked at whether people agreed on statements and whether they recognized what other people would consider common sense.
And their findings?
People shared less collective common sense than we might expect.
Agreement was strongest around straightforward statements about physical reality. But when researchers examined common sense across a wide variety of claims, broad agreement was surprisingly limited.
Well, isn’t that interesting?
Here we are, walking around assuming certain things should be obvious to everyone.
Meanwhile, the research suggests we may not even agree on what qualifies as obvious!
Now, this study wasn’t measuring whether people were intelligent or capable of making good decisions. It was examining shared beliefs and agreement.
That’s an important distinction.
But it certainly made me think.
Maybe common sense isn’t one universal set of rules. Maybe it’s partly shaped by what we’ve learned, experienced, and come to expect.
And that would explain quite a bit.
Why Something Seems Obvious to Me but Not to Someone Else
Think about everything you’ve learned throughout your life.
Some lessons came from school.
Some came from your parents.
Some came from watching other people.
And some?
Well, those came from making a mistake and realizing you probably shouldn’t do that again!
I think experience plays a huge role in practical judgment.
At work, for example, I’ve spent years dealing with inventory, identifying problems, researching discrepancies, and figuring out what happened when something doesn’t add up.
When you’ve worked through similar situations repeatedly, you start recognizing patterns.
You learn what to look for.
You begin anticipating potential problems before they happen.
Eventually, some decisions feel automatic.
But here’s something I’ve had to remind myself.
Just because a solution is obvious to me doesn’t mean someone else has learned to recognize the same clues.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re incapable.
Maybe they haven’t encountered that situation before.
Maybe they were trained differently.
Maybe they’re focusing on something I’m overlooking.
Or maybe they genuinely haven’t developed the habit of thinking through what happens next.
Of course, sometimes people really do make careless decisions.
I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t happen!
But understanding why someone makes a decision might be more useful than simply labeling it a lack of common sense.
And that brings me to another interesting piece of research.
Our Brains Don’t Always Stop to Think
Have you ever answered a question quickly, only to realize afterward that you completely overlooked something?
I certainly have.
Sometimes the first answer that pops into our heads feels so obvious that we don’t bother questioning it.
Psychologist Shane Frederick explored this tendency in his 2005 research on cognitive reflection.
His work examined people’s ability or inclination to reconsider an immediate answer rather than automatically accepting their first response.
He also found relationships between performance on cognitive-reflection questions and certain decision-making patterns.
Now, that doesn’t mean every quick decision is wrong.
Sometimes experience allows us to make excellent decisions almost instantly.
But other times, our first reaction needs a second look.
And I think that’s where a lot of everyday mistakes can happen.
We see something.
We make an assumption.
We act.
And only afterward do we realize we missed an important detail.
It’s almost like our brains are saying, “I’ve got this!”
Meanwhile, the rest of us are standing there thinking, “Are you SURE about that?”
Maybe one of the most useful habits we can develop is simply learning when to slow down.
Not necessarily for every tiny decision.
But especially when something doesn’t make sense, when the consequences matter, or when we’re working with incomplete information.
So… Can Common Sense Actually Be Taught?
This is the part I was most curious about.
And the answer appears to be more encouraging than I expected.
We may not be able to teach one universal version of common sense, but we can teach many of the thinking skills that contribute to better practical judgment.
Researchers and educators have spent years studying how people develop reasoning, problem-solving, and awareness of their own thinking.
One important concept is called metacognition.
That’s a fancy word for something pretty simple.
Thinking about how you think.
It means becoming aware of how you approach a problem, recognizing whether your strategy is working, and adjusting when necessary.
The Education Endowment Foundation reviewed research on metacognition and self-regulation and found that explicitly teaching students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning can improve educational outcomes.
The evidence also supports teaching these strategies within real tasks rather than treating thinking as an isolated skill.
Now, most of this research comes from educational settings.
That doesn’t automatically prove we can teach every adult perfect practical judgment.
But it does give us a useful starting point.
Because planning, checking our assumptions, evaluating results, and learning from mistakes aren’t skills that stop being valuable when we graduate.
We use them throughout our lives.
And I think we can get better at them.
Maybe We Need to Stop Giving People All the Answers
This is where the research really connected with my own experiences.
At work, when someone comes to me with a problem, my natural instinct is often to help solve it.
I like figuring things out.
I like organizing information.
And I especially enjoy those moments when all the little pieces finally fit together. It’s the same problem-solving side of me that loved reworking my own workspace so everything finally had a place.
But I’ve started wondering whether immediately providing the answer is always the most helpful approach.
Because if someone asks me what to do, and I tell them exactly what to do, they might solve that particular problem.
But have they learned how to solve the next one?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
What if, instead of immediately giving the answer, I asked a few questions?
What do you notice?
What have you already checked?
What do you think might be causing the problem?
What would happen if you tried that?
Is there another possibility we haven’t considered?
Those questions encourage someone to examine the situation rather than simply wait for instructions.
And there’s research supporting this general approach.
Harvard Project Zero has developed thinking routines that encourage observation, interpretation, questioning, and evidence-based reasoning.
One routine, called See, Think, Wonder, encourages learners to separate what they observe from what they think it means and what they still want to understand.
I love that.
Because it turns problem-solving into a process of curiosity.
And curiosity is something I’m always encouraging. It’s the whole reason I started Wellness Fueled by Mandy in the first place!
Of course, there’s a balance.
If someone is brand-new to a task, they may need clear instructions, examples, and guidance before they’re ready to solve problems independently.
And if there’s an immediate safety issue, that’s certainly not the moment to stand around asking philosophical questions!
But when there’s room to learn?
Maybe asking the right question is more valuable than immediately supplying the answer.
Five Ways We Can Strengthen Our Everyday Judgment
The more I researched this topic, the more I realized that improving practical judgment doesn’t have to be complicated.
We can practice it during ordinary moments.
Here are five approaches I want to explore more myself.
1. Pause Before Reacting
Sometimes we need to give ourselves a moment to think before acting.
Ask yourself:
Am I responding to what I actually know, or what I’m assuming?
That little pause can create room to notice something you might otherwise overlook.
2. Separate Facts From Assumptions
This one is especially important.
What do you know for certain?
What are you interpreting based on what you think happened?
What information might you still be missing?
Before deciding someone made a ridiculous choice, it might help to check whether we’re working with the same facts. I learned a version of that lesson through tracking my own wellness habits—there’s a difference between what I think I’m doing and what I actually do!
3. Think One Step Ahead
One question I wish we asked more often is:
If I do this, what is likely to happen next?
And then:
What happens after that?
Sometimes thinking through the next step helps us catch a problem before it becomes a bigger one.
4. Learn From the Result
When something doesn’t work, it’s tempting to blame the situation, someone else, or ourselves.
But what if we looked at the outcome as information?
What worked? What didn’t? What could we change next time?
I’m a big believer in accountability. If I didn’t put in the effort or think something through, I want to be able to admit that. Not to beat myself up, but to learn from it.
5. Get Comfortable Asking Questions
I think curiosity is an underrated part of practical judgment.
Instead of assuming we already know the answer, we can ask:
What am I missing?
Sometimes that question alone can open up a completely different way of seeing a problem.
These aren’t guaranteed solutions to every decision-making problem. They’re practical ways to apply observation, reflection, and self-questioning—the kinds of thinking processes explored in educational research.
But What About People Who Just Don’t Seem to Get It?
Okay, but what about those situations where you’ve explained something, demonstrated it, and somehow the same problem keeps happening?
I know how frustrating that can feel.
But as I thought more about this, I realized there are different reasons someone might struggle with what seems like a straightforward decision.
If someone doesn’t have the necessary information, they may need an explanation.
If they haven’t encountered the situation before, they may need practice.
If they aren’t recognizing patterns or connecting steps, they may need examples and guidance that help them understand why something works.
And if they understand what needs to happen but consistently choose not to follow through, that may be an accountability issue rather than a knowledge issue.
Those are different problems, and they don’t all have the same solution.
Sometimes instructions weren’t as clear as we assumed. Sometimes training wasn’t enough. And yes, sometimes someone simply isn’t putting in the effort.
I don’t think we need to pretend poor decisions never happen. But figuring out what’s actually going wrong gives us a better chance of helping someone learn—and makes us more effective coworkers, parents, and problem-solvers.
Maybe Common Sense Starts With Self-Awareness
Here’s where I had to turn this question back on myself.
I started by wondering why other people seemed to lack common sense.
But if what seems obvious to me isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone, shouldn’t I be willing to question my own assumptions too?
I’ve learned a lot from experience, especially from working through problems that don’t have a neat, ready-made answer.
That experience matters. But it doesn’t mean I know everything.
Maybe I missed an important detail. Maybe someone else has information I don’t. Maybe a choice that seems unreasonable to me makes more sense once I understand the circumstances.
That doesn’t mean letting people off the hook or avoiding accountability. It means separating an honest mistake, a lack of experience, and a choice someone knew better than to make.
I’m probably still going to have those moments when I look at something and think, Seriously?! I’m human!
The difference is whether I stop at frustration or get curious enough to understand what’s happening.
The Real Question Might Not Be Where Common Sense Went
I started with a familiar complaint: Whatever happened to common sense?
Now, I’m not so sure that’s the most useful question.
Maybe we need to pay more attention to how people learn to observe, reason, recognize consequences, and make decisions. Maybe we need to ask better questions instead of assuming everyone should already see exactly what we see.
And maybe developing good practical judgment isn’t something we finish at a certain age. It takes practice, learning from mistakes, and accepting responsibility for the choices we make.
Because practical judgment isn’t just about knowing what to do. It’s about recognizing when we need to stop, think, ask questions, and possibly change our approach.
And that’s something I believe we can continue developing throughout our lives.
So here’s what I’m curious about…
When you think about common sense, do you believe it’s something people naturally have, something they learn through experience, or something we need to make a more conscious effort to teach?
And perhaps an even more interesting question:
When was the last time something seemed completely obvious to you… until someone else helped you see it differently?
Start Where You Are. Grow From There.