……(yes), I learned in Kindergarten
I often will go back to some of the books that had special meaning for me. This one, All I Really Need I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum, was published in 1986 by Villard Books. Here’s a snippet from pages 6 and 7:
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 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.
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 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.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Life is so complicated with emails, to-do lists, constant noise and confusion. Every once in a while we need to remember what life is really all about –
The being – the wonder – the feeling of joy.
Be that today.
This month we are delving into how to live a simple life. Here on the blog, and in our twice-monthly newsletter, we are searching for ways to stop the noise in our lives so that we can hear our Spirit, our inner voice, speak to us. Come join us!