All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten

Published in Touch, which is the Reiki Association magazine September 29 2001 whoever wrote this said it was one of their favorite books. The title is ‘All I really need to know, I learned in kindergarten’ by Robert Fulghum.

And this was the quote:

‘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 sandpit at Sunday school, it was.

And whoever wrote this said, these are the things that I learned:

1. Share everything.

2. Play fair.

3. Don’t hit people.

4. Put things back where you found them.

5. Clean up your own mess.

6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

7. Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone.

8. Wash your hands before you eat.

9. Flush

10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

11. Live a balanced life.

12. Learn some, think some, draw, paint, sing, dance, play and work every day.

13. Take a nap every afternoon.

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

15. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed and the styrofoam cup, the roots go down and the plant goes up, and nobody really knows how or why, but we’re all like that.

16. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice, and even the little seed in the styrofoam cup, they all die, so do we.

17. 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, love, basic sanitation. Ecology, and politics: equality and sane living.

Take any one of those terms and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult adult terms. Apply it to your family life, or your work or government or your world. It holds true, clear, and firm.

Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about 3pm every afternoon. Then lay down with our blankets for a nap.

Or, if all governments had as a basic policy, always to put things back where they found them. Clean up their own mess.

And it still holds true no matter how old you are. When you go out into the world, it’s best to hold hands and stick together.