Friday 18 May 2007

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
(a guide for Global Leadership)

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 pit 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 biscuits 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 biscuits 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.

Robert Fulghum.

3 comments:

Oaf said...

Morning Chris

Finding your blog is not easy at the moment.
Loyal readers may be discouraged by the lack of a link on the new LLN page.
But not me.

Sorry you have had a really bad week. Too many meetings and not enough beer and pies if you ask me.
Still, that was last week and this weeks possibilities are endless.

Start with something really positive, such as making a model of Lord Adonis and sticking pins in it, or making a colleague laugh by hiding in a cupboard and leaping out unexpectedly at them (this might not be as funny if done at home to Mrs Chris).

Oaf

Chris Edwards said...

Sorry that it is difficult to find my blog. Haven't you made it one of your favourites! I'll ask my colleagues to see what we can do to help.
THANKS
Chris

Anonymous said...

Who IS the Oaf?!