Common Sense

I have great memories of my high school graduation back in 1973.  At the time, my Dad was President of the local school board and he was one of the speakers at the ceremony.  Dad’s speech was different than the others.  He spoke about “common sense”, and talked for less than 3 minutes.  Predictably, he received a large ovation from the students, and the content of his speech was memorable.  My Dad was a no-nonsense kind of person, and when he spoke, he was always deliberate and genuine.  And that genuine nature was the basis for the ovations that day.

In today’s media-driven society, we are hard-pressed to find genuine messages.  It seems that twist and bias and spin are served up on a daily basis, and it is all too easy to accept what we see and hear as gospel.  When we rub common sense and research against media hype, things become clear.

Lately, I’ve been discussing the subject of “frivolous lawsuits” in many of my conversations.  Many of you may have heard of the woman who, while driving a motor home, engaged the cruise control, then got up and walked to the back of the vehicle to do something.  Of course, the motor home crashed.  Apparently, she filed a lawsuit against the company for not disclosing the dangers of this activity in the owner’s manual.  The legend goes on that she won a multi-million dollar settlement along with a new motor home.  I finally did the research and found this one to be the stuff of legends.  It never happened! 

Inevitably, you then hear about the McDonalds coffee lawsuit.  When you do the research the facts show it not to be all that frivolous.

Both of these stories are the kind insurance companies like to talk about.   Create a sense of urgency and paranoia in people, and they will buy more insurance so as not to become a victim of a frivolous lawsuit.  And too many times, we chose to become slaves to that line of thinking. 

My message is this….Don’t let media and industry spin invade your “common sense”.  After all, folks, we are all I this together, and our humanity is what binds us!