How does one learn discernment?

I'm posing this question as this seems to be something a lot of people struggle with these days. It's like the old saying (I'm paraphrasing badly) of 'a lot of book sense but no common sense'. When people are faced with a difficult and complex choice, secondary and tertiary effects are not contemplated. They try and decide by looking for someone who is 'intelligent' and proposes a plan. Never mind anything else, we'll just go with them. There are so many metaphors and sayings for this kind of situation I'm having a hard time picking just one. However, people NEED to take the time to think through things when making these choices.

So, after getting frustrated with the world again (I'm beginning to think modern society is falling into the often-repeated definition of insanity – trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result), I started pondering this 'lack of discerning' and how it can be overcome. Some people are naturally gifted in this area. I however have had to work diligently over the years to try and apply discernment in different situations. The one thing that seems to be the common element to applying discernment is time. Time is needed, and it's the one thing that's either not asked for or deliberately left out of decisions these days. I will admit there are situations when time cannot be taken, but those are true emergencies and I haven't really seen one of those for quite a while.

Time is an important factor, but more is needed (at least for those of us who have to work at those higher level thought processes) in order for that time to be fruitful. It's not enough for there to be time, you need to be able to apply principles, recognize potential pitfalls, and be able to determine what your long term goals are. The books I mentioned in a previous post, Logic by Isaac Watts and The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle are great tools in assembling and learning to use tools. Using logic will help you to determine the best course of action in a situation, and by understanding rhetoric you will be able to see when someone is 'putting one over' on you.

Oh well, maybe someone out there can give me some other things helping in obtaining and applying discernment.