Golly, there's always a problem to solve isn't there? I mean you solve one problem and soon enough another pops up requiring your attention. Just as soon as I decided who I'm going to vote for for president the media is full of dire warnings about America going to hell in a hand basket economically and if congress doesn't bail out Wall street, the failing banks and mortgage companies and on and on and so forth and all that, and well everything will be a shambles and, and , and well I hesitate to think how bad it will be.

I guess I should be thankful that only one problem presents itself at a time. Yeah right! If only.

After listening to media pundits, economic experts, congressmen and women and senators and Joe Blow on the street, I'm as confused, if not more than, as when this all came to light just a few days ago. I thought to myself, "self, where can you find advice, to seek answers, to calm yourself down? Tomes of economics? the bible? Where can I find some answers?"

Then I remembered a simple collection of essays I'd read some twenty years ago, combined into a book titled "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten." Written by Robert Fulghum.
I'm sure most of you have read it by now, but if you have not, then I highly recommend that you do. It'll add insight to the solving of many of the situations that arise in your life that you see as a problem. I reread all 196 pages of this book after supper tonight. I'm not a fast reader by any means, so if I can do it anyone can.

Starting on page 6 of my copy:

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
sandpile at Sunday 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 into 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 of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your
family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
Think what a better world it would be if
all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments
had a basic policy to always put thing 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 into the world, it is best
to hold hands and stick together.

© Robert Fulghum, 1990.
Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.

The bold ones are the ones I think apply to the current economic situation.