Accruing positive change

Common sense is a tricky thing to find some days, and I think quite wrongly named as it is rarely common. I think what common sense should be called is the key that allows you to access a universal truth that you often miss because it is too close to your eyes. It’s the good old adage about not seeing the forest for the tress. You know there is a wall in front of you but until you have the words to describe it and the image identified you can’t comprehend how to get around it.

I think some people shy away from common sense because the trust almost always comes at a cost: change. As soon as you’ve been told something new and accept it, you must change the way you perceive the world and this thought can be terrifying. It’s how ideas can move mountains and inspire nations. The true may set you free, but the next question is always ‘then what’, and that’s the one that matters most. ‘Then what’ is the truth that blinds. Like looking at anything bright however if we squint at first and then slowly open our eyes we are actually able to perceive the image before us slowly and steadily. This is how we must access our universal truths.

There is of course also the age old debate about whether leaders, the ones who help us find our way to the truth, are born or bread. I for one would like to think they are shaped. Everything in life that you come in contact with shapes you in some way, leaders simply react positivity to the change. If this is in fact true then anyone can become a leader, they simply need to shift the paradigm of their perception. Simple is rarely actually that however, and with every passing day the change required becomes exponentially greater. Luckily, like Newton stated so many years ago, the opposite is also true. The more often you tap into common sense the easier it becomes: the light naturally is less blinding. Consequentially the change required is also smaller and easier to incorporate into your daily life.

Change then is most easily accessed by children but this should come as no surprise. Most people I know can single out a handful of mentors without whom they would not have even seen the door to common sense. Interestingly, most also can list a certain point or two in their life where they were forced to make a difficult choice. Despite the immediate consequences they choose to listen to their common sense and do what they felt was right. The result is often painful at first, akin to the pains of growing up, but the result is someone who they are proud to say they have become.

Although we can look to our children as our future, and the hope of a better time, in the end it is the here and now that is the only thing that can be affected. Each and every one of us must look to ourselves as a person who can actively effect change. The moral of the story here is that every day we are faced with choices that we chose to ignore because doing so is easy. But, if we instead chose to listen to what we know to be right, our common sense, our universal truths, then we would all be on the road to self betterment and positive change. A road that only gets easier after the first step.