Let’s Bring Back the Good Sense of Common Sense

Common sense isn’t as common as it used to be, but with a little practice, we can bring it back.

American inventor Thomas Edison (1847–1931) conducting an experiment in his laboratory, circa 1910. He once said, "The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.” FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images

“He ain’t got a lick of sense.”

There’s an expression I haven’t heard since my boyhood in Boonville, North Carolina. The people who once spoke those words could address them to just about everyone, from the sixth-grade schoolboy shooting a BB gun at his friend to the 20-year-old mechanic who had taken out a loan to buy a brand-spanking-new Ford Mustang. Sense referred to common sense, which meant sound judgment and a practical bent, and most of the grownups I knew in those bygone days struck me as eminently sane men and women for whom this virtue was second nature.