Kindergarten wisdom

"All 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 sandpile 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 word 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."

This is a passage from All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. When I read it, I am 25 and 6 years old at the same time. I knew all these things as a child and yet they have been given much more meaning by life experiences.

This is a wonderful world, and yet sometimes the wonder gets lost or forgotten. Then the world becomes a place that is just full--full of information, full of busyness, and full of regulations. Not only is this a wonderful world, it is my Father's world...