Paper Example. How People Can Practice Common Sense

Common sense is one concept that people often overlook but is vital in addressing most life challenges. In most cases, people are tempted to ignore the first impression of an issue that requires less effort to respond to by trying to understand it from different approaches and, eventually, end up complicating the issue rather than addressing it. It is for this reason that Diamond (par. 3) states that people should not pay much attention to details when trying to understand some complex scenarios if their conclusion is impractical. Heeding this statement, essentially, is what practicing common sense entails. The most effective way to practice common sense is to be cognizant of what is important in any activity or experience that someone encounters, which is the outcome. Regardless of the method used, they will only be considered to be fruitful if the intended outcome is achieved. The details and processes involved often distract one from achieving the targeted goal.

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One of the most common experiences that most people go through is emergencies, which require people to use common sense to handle the emergencies. For instance, when driving to work in the morning, Peter, a fictitious character, comes across a road accident that involved a collision between two or more cars. Several people suffer injuries during this accident and need urgent medical attention for them to survive. Practically, there are three options for Peter irrespective of whether he responds to this accident or not.

First, Peter may choose not to respond by ignoring the accident and proceeding to work hoping that another person will take charge of rescuing the victims and take them to the hospital. After all, he prepared himself to go to work and not save people along the way. However, this option has consequences since the thought of failing to help the victims may haunt him if the victims succumb to the injuries due to the lack of swift response. The second option for Peter is to call an ambulance to come with paramedics to rescue the victims and take them to the hospital for further treatment. This option looks suitable since the paramedics are trained to respond to accidents and are well-equipped to nurse the victims before taking them to hospital. However, since the accident occurred during peak hours, chances are high that the ambulance will get stuck in traffic and, thus, fail to arrive early enough to save the victims.

The third option is for Peter to cancel his plans of proceeding to work to help take the accident victims to the hospital using his car and, if the victims cannot all fit in his car, possibly request other motorists to help in taking them to hospital. Common sense dictates that this option may be the most appropriate way of responding to the accident since the intended outcome in any emergency is to save people and, therefore, any approach that does not achieve this outcome through common sense is ineffective. The first two options present a lower chance of achieving this outcome. The first option will not in any way help in saving the victims. The second option looks more practical than the first one. However, it involves a process that may be time-consuming and, thus, does not guarantee that the victims will be saved. The third option presents the swiftest response to saving the victims lives. Since Peter is already at the accident scene and every second lost increase the chances of losing the victims, it is only wise to take them to the hospital rather than call an ambulance or assume other people will take charge. With that in mind, it would be justified to conclude that the most effective way of practising common sense is by recognizing the outcome of different actions and focusing on the actions that achieve the desired and practical outcome.

Works Cited

Diamond, Jared. "2017: What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to be More Widely Known? Common Sense". Edge.Org, 2017, https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27111