Living a Balanced Life: Let’s Go Back to Kindergarten

It’s hard to believe summer is almost over and it is back to school time. During a teacher conference for my son to prepare him to head back to the classroom, I saw a poster Robert Fulghum’s “All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten,” and thought it provided great wisdom for all ages and stages. It has been a long time since I read it and I wanted to share and reflect on its message. Everything you need to know to be successful at home and in business is in there somewhere. Here’s the text:

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.

Just think what a better workplace or home life we’d have if we took the time to learn something new every day, be creative for an hour in the afternoon, or open our minds and just wonder. Are you sharing successes with your colleagues? Are you taking the time to LOOK and more importantly LISTEN before you make decisions or give directions to your team?

Go ahead, read it again.

~ Amy Moynihan