Day: April 22, 2018

Common Sense: Not looking both ways before crossing the road. Not touching a stove eye which is red. Don’t sign anything without reading it first. Don’t eat undercooked pork, or a raw ghost pepper.

Don’t encourage ignorance. Don’t put up with rudeness. Don’t forget to say please, thank you, and excuse me. Don’t be bigoted.

Don’t be sexist. Don’t forget to brush your teeth before you go to the dentist. Don’t forget to vote. Always wear clean underwear. Don’t shoot a motorcycle gang a bird.

Don’t forget to learn as much as you can about everything you can. Don’t argue unless you know you are right. Don’t be stubborn about changing your mind when you’re wrong. Don’t contradict yourself.

Always fasten your seatbelt. Don’t fly unless it’s in a plane. Don’t criticize anyone’s personal beliefs.

Thomas Paine once wrote a book by the same name. Read it, it’s an important part of history. Benjamin Franklin wrote a bunch of good common sense sayings in Poor Richard’s Almanac. Another important book.

Apple Cider vinegar and local honey are good for what ails you. Wear an orange vest in the woods during deer season.

Love your neighbor, and that doesn’t just apply to the people you live near. Have compassion and pity for those with less than you. Try to understand where even the angry people are coming from.

Hug somebody. Get enough sleep……

Life is like a balance scale. You must balance out the things you want with the things you really need. You may never have all you think you need, but then…did you truly need it after all?

As a child and a young man I would often dream of what I could become. What I have become is much different. I would not have imagined this. Nobody dreams of growing up to become “ordinary”. But ordinary is not bad, it is simply what has been weighed out in the balance, through choice and through chance.

After all, free will is what has been given to we humans as our heritage from the trials and errors of our ancestors, and through natural selection, or from God if you will.

We should not fail to exercise it, but we should realize at the same time the moral limitations it puts upon us. We should weigh in the balance that which makes us happy and productive against the idealism of that which we think would make us more satisfied.

Sometimes they are one and the same, but most of the time they are not, and those are the times which cause us to get out of balance, and to hurt ourselves and others whom we love.

As one of my favorite fantasy writers Brandon Sanderson said in his book The Hero of Ages:

“Somehow, we’ll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”