Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

[Daddieo]

Most of what 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 sandbox at nursery
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 for traffic, hold hands and stick together.


Be aware of wonder.


Remember the little seed in the plastic 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 plastic cup -- they all die. So do we.


And then remember the book about Dick and Jane 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 sane
living.


Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then
lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in
our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found
them and cleaned up our own messes. 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 ~




It has been an entire generation since this was first published back in 1988. In a certain sense, it has been a lifetime. I have had a family of five children, starting with a girl and ending with a girl and three boys in between...and I had a poster of this poem plastered on the wallfor many years. If not a "blueprint" for a sane and feeling life, "Everything..." is warm and comfortable, and appeals to the "good guy" in all of us...we're all in it together; take it light, use and appreciate "common" sense, and love and care for everything and everyone that you might.

This still, after twenty-two years, is an excellent "reminder" of good things to share with your fellow human beings. I have shared it wwith my children...I think, perhaps, that "Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten" should be unfurled once again for my grandchildren...and yours, too, if you'd like?

Sharing good thoughts and feelings,
Jim