A favourite poem

A few nights ago I was out walking the dogs.  Twice I ran into a couple whose dog was  loose.  They were walking on the right side of the road (which is really the wrong side) and I was walking on the left side (which is really the right side). Both times I had to cross the road to avoid them as I didn't want to risk having 3 dogs meet in the dark, slippery night.  This made me mad. Every time I walk the dogs, I run into someone on the wrong side of the road and I am the one who has to move. Am I the only one who remembers what was drilled into our heads in elementary school? Walk on the left side facing traffic and ride your bike on the right side because you are considered a vehicle.  That made me think of one of my favourite poems and how much simpler and happier life would be if we could remember and more importantly apply what we learned when we were younger. 

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 sand pile at 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 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 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.

by Robert Fulghum