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 thing
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 some and sing and
dance some and play and work some every day. 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 of what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world –
had cookies and milk about 3:00 every afternoon and then lay down with our
blankets for a nap. Of 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 in the world,
it is best to hold hands and stick together.
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