Tips for Better Days Continued...

"All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten"
It’s hard to resist the homilies that Robert Fulgham expresses in his book by this
title. The lessons for adults working and living together and how we interact and show up in life, are poignant ways to prevent unnecessary conflict. 

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 sandpile at School.
These are the things I learned:

Ø     Share everything.

Ø     Play fair.

Ø     Don't hit people.

Ø     Put things back where you found them.

Ø     Clean up your own mess.

Ø     Don't take things that aren't yours.

Ø     Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Ø     Wash your hands before you eat.

Ø     Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Ø     Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and
sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Ø     Take a nap every afternoon.

Ø     When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and
stick together.

Ø     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.

Ø     Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the
Styrofoam cup -they all die. So do we.

Ø     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.”

©
Robert Fulghum (1990). All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten,
Villard Books: New York.