I had the honour of reading this out at the wedding of my son and his beautiful bride just on three years ago. I think it is something that all of us should have as a guide to living our lives.
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All of what we really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, we learnt in Kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at primary school. These are the things we 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 sorry when you hurt somebody.
- Wash your hands before you eat.
- Flush.
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. - Give them to someone who feels sad.
- Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day.
- Take a nap every afternoon.
- Be aware of wonder.
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 one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things 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.
[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/ ]
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