By Robert Fulghum, titled;
All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
All I really need to know about how to live
and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the
top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday
School. These are the things I learned. Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit
people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t
take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash
your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life-learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and
dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go
out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be
aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go
down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all
like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the
Styrofoam cup-they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books
and the first word you learned-the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there
somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics
and equality and sane living. Take any of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your
government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a
better world it would be if all-the whole world-had cookies and milk about
three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or
if all governments had a basic policy to always put thing back where they found
them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old
you are-when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick
together.
One
morning after a terrible snowstorm, Susan was outside shoveling her driveway.
She stopped to wave hello to her neighbor, and he asked her why her husband
wasn’t out there helping her with the chore.
She
explained that one of them had to stay inside to take care of the children, so
they drew straws to see who would go out and shovel. "Sorry about your bad
luck," he said. Susan replied, "Don’t be sorry. I won!"
