EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW...

I hate inspirational posters. 

I’ve never seen a better way of ruining a cool image.

You have this great photograph of a team of skydivers or mountain climbers in an impossible formation. Amazing shots.

Then your eyes go down and instead of reading the name of the photographer and the location of the shot you discover this: TEAMWORK. Followed by a cheesy quote.

It’s the type of thing Michael from “The Office” would have  hanging in his office. 

So I've always hated inspirational posters. Except one.

I saw it in the late eighties and it intrigued me enough to find out where it had come from. (One thing in its favor was that it didn't use any images). It had only a colorful background with children motifs and a few lines of text.

I discovered that the text came from a talk at an elementary school graduation by a minister called Robert Fulghum. It generated so much interest that eventually it ended up in a newspaper column (we're talking pre-internet age here, people) and then it was published as part of a book of a essays by Mr. Fulghum. I bought the book.

The other day, as I was organizing my home library, tossing out books I will certainly not open again, I found the small book I had almost forgotten. Robert Fulghum's "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten". I read it again.  I still like it.

It has been so long that I really don't know how many of you people (meaning younger than me by 15 years people) have seen it, but I think it's worth sharing. So, here it goes.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Most of what 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 at the sandbox in nursery 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 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 for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the plastic 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 plastic cup--they all die. And so do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane 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 sane living.

Think what a better world it would be if we all-- the whole world-- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into de world it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Ok. A bit naive. But not pretentious. No big words. Just a nice insight about common things and how they can sometimes hide uncommon thoughts.