Kindergarten Rules

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 sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:



image via cherryblossomgirl

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.

"Up to the Nose" installation and photo by Ivan Puig

Live a balanced life - 

learn some and think some

and draw and paint 

and sing and dance and play

and work every day some.

ironing by the Eiffle Tower via Dita Vonteese

Take a nap every afternoon.

photo by Miles Aldridge

When you go out in 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 !

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 champagne 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 in 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/