Our world is so fractured these days. In the book All I Ever Needed I Learned in Kindergarten, author Robert Fulghum takes us back to an earlier time. A time when warm cookies and milk were the biggest thing to happen to your day. When a nap was mandatory. And when you learned to clean up after yourself and treat others with Kindness. Join us as we revisit some of these key lessons and how they might apply to your world today.
A few weeks ago my bride and I started doing some post holiday clean out. I came across an old paperback copy of one of my favorite books: All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum.
This book was published in 1986. The year I graduated from high school. The year I started college. 1986 was a glorious year, for sure.
I decided to re-read this book to see if the yellowing pages had the same impact on me after some 30-plus years stuffed in a box.
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The book is comprised of short stories. The kind of stories that make us feel good. The kind that make us think about everyday happenings. The kind that make us slow down, and savor life for a minute. Old school stuff, for sure.
You see this book is really about a set of rules. Rules of living decently with other human beings. Rules that were relevant to adults (and kindergarteners) in 1986. But who knew that we would need these rules even more today. A lot more.
Rules like “Play fair” and “Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.” Basic things that we all learned before we could even write our own name with a broken Magenta crayon. Before we realized that nobody wants the white crayon or the white jelly beans. Before we realized that a “smock” was really just our dad’s old dress shirt. Before we questioned if we could really sing or dance. (Of course we can).
But somewhere along the way we’ve lost these rules. Rules of common decency.
Share everything.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
It seems as if the more our world speeds up, the less we remember these rules. As if the speed of life negates the need to share and say your sorry when you mess up. As if we’ve earned the right not to put things back where we found them.
We work crazy hours. Then we go home to bury our face in our phone as we watch another episode of The Voice for the third night in a row.
We forget what it felt like to see the world afresh. To draw and paint without judgement. To listen to stories with child-like curiosity. To sing and dance like nobody's watching.
Back when we were full of optimism and an unwavering sense of adventure. When every day was new. When every day was exciting. We couldn’t wait to go home. And we couldn’t wait to come back tomorrow.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
How I long for that unbridled excitement. That unadulterated wonder at the world around us. The wonder of a child. Long before the world begins to temper our expectations. When our emotions were lifted beyond the heavens by the smell of a brand-new box of Crayola 64’s with the built in sharpener.
I can still vividly remember the much-anticipated field trip to Mathis Dairy. It was the highlight of the year. And I got chosen to actually milk the cow, Rosebud. I can still smell that nasty heifer. I can still feel that udder in my hands. And hear the squirt of milk hitting the metal pail. Before we left they gave us cold, chocolate milk in glass bottles with straws. It was heaven.
The Mathis Dairy Farm began dairy tours for children in the 1950’s, where visitors received the prestigious “I Milked Rosebud” buttons. The beloved cow participated in charity events and was milked by celebrities and politicians, including Jimmy Carter. It is rumored that the Chic-Fil-A cows are all direct descendent of Rosebud.
Can you imagine if we had heeded that advice? Like the advice to clean up our own messes. Perhaps we wouldn't have to contemplate a garbage dump the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. Or argue about whether we should eat Rosebud for dinner. Or drink from a single-use, plastic straw. Or whether we are all gonna drown in exactly 12.3 years. How silly all that might seem to us.
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.
Isn’t it true that life is still pretty simple at its core? It’s our human interpretation and our desire to complicate things that causes trouble. That little voice in our head that wants to make everything so darn complicated. As Fulghum expresses in the book, “The examined life is no picnic.”
Back when we had three channels on the TV. And one telephone for five people to share. And milk that got delivered to the door. And my Dad could let me sit on his lap to hold the steering wheel at 60mph so he could get his beer open without spilling in on himself. Without seat belts, of course.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Don’t you think the world would be a better place if every meeting ended with warm cookies and milk? And people actually shared their cookies. And then snuggled up on a mat with their blankie and took a long nap. Imagine making Republicans and Democrats follow this protocol.
Imagine what the country might accomplish if we feared life & death and pain & sorrow like a child. And we cherished love and joy and friendship like the rare commodities they truly are. And we never lost that sense of wonder. And we saw every world problem through the universal filter of child-like innocence.
We might, in fact, honor the life and death of a homeless man in Santa Monica. A man who died the same day as Kobe Bryant. Yet people pour out their hearts over Kobe Bryant as if they’ve lost a lifelong friend. Both are total strangers to us. Both of their lives had value.
Child-like wonder is an antidote. An antidote for everything. But especially an antidote for our hyper-individualistic way of life. A society almost totally devoid of social, emotional or physical contact. An antidote of love and cookies & milk. An antidote of sharing and nonviolence and naps.
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.
And just imagine if we actually learned the lesson that was intended with the styrofoam cup. That little seedling. Peeking its little green head above the soil. That life is fleeting. That life is precious. And just as the seedling dies, we too shall perish in due time. And that we shouldn’t waste it. Not a minute of it. For just like the seedling, nobody knows when their time will come.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
When my daughter was in Kindergarten the teacher, had a research lab worth of mice and fish and every creature under the sun. She even had rabbits that hopped around the room free as a bird. I still recall when Tenpleton the rat died.
Those were dark days at our house. Dark days.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
A few weeks ago I wrote a story about Legacy. And our propensity to rely on apps like Waze for navigation. Our heads down. Minds engrossed in the mindless pursuit of nothingness. And as we look down, the entire world passes us by.
Just imagine life in another ten years. When driverless cars will whisk us to and fro. We won’t even bother to look out the window at the world. Too engrossed in our own myopic lives. No need to look around to see where we are. Looking around will become the historical equivalent of watering your horses during a long journey.
So that’s it. Just a few rules to live by that could make life on this planet more enjoyable.
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