All I really need to know

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.

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.

Flush.

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.

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.

© Robert Fulghum, 1990.

Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.