Back to the basics. Basic training on Basic Road.

Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.

Please and thank are the magic words.

Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.

If I didn’t.

It is worth repeating.

Repetition.

The sincerest form of flattery🙂.

A picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand dollars.

But first:

“ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN”(c)

By Robert Fulghum

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 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 are not 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 everyday 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 one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work to your 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 about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if all governments has 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 into the real world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Cookies and milk!

Holding hands.

Wonderful.

🤳🏻🤳🏻🤳🏻🤳🏻

Holding hand held screens—not so,

wonderful.

How can any one person successfully practice these very specific child-like rules—in order to get a “scoop”. A good scoop. A delicious scoop.

No. Not ice cream.

The gossip, the story, the bad news of another. When? Is it ever worth the highest or lowest price to any bidder. To know the pain of another. The joy. The dirt. The highs. The lows.

Never.

Exaxtly.

How can we properly, connect? Hold hands properly, build a connection if we won’t,

Take a chance? To hold hands. Connect. Properly.

To hold hands with one another and NOT hold hands with the menacing menace taking its place? In our precious hands. The menacing menace, worse than a fire arm, the one where it is all too easy to

Point. Aim. and Shoot?…at and of another.

The ugly mug shot of all mug shots wherein society ridicules and the resulting “fall out” can or may eat away at the soul.

Not cool.

Not fair.

”They” often have told us that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Maybe.

I dunno.

Maybe not.

The process has become the punishment.

With the outcome anybody’s guess.

Many, many good people risk their lives every day.

Every. Day.

To do what is right. Due diligence. To honor and protect.

In service to their fellow man.

Others.

Take.

Steal.

Cheat.

Bat eyes.

Etcetera. etcetera.

From their fellow man.

The good. The honorable ones. They risk their lives every day.

Every. Day.

Not knowing what the tomorrow will bring along for the ride.

Others. Hold the ammunition of personal choice in their hands and keep a record.

Keep score.

Point. Aim. Shoot.

Why?

To keep score.

Not cool.

Not good.

Pictures may be an etched-memory.

A good one.

A bad one.

A bargaining one.

A deafening one.

Not cool.

Not good.

Psychological warfare—keeps us on our toes, yes.

But. You may be the one dancing around if you choose to take the path of least resistance. IE: Point Aim. Shoot.

We are stronger together.

But most person are not morons.

It may have worked for you today.

The annihilation and character assasination and the dreaded selfie of another self…. to prove they were or weren’t there. To prove they were hot or cold or whatever.

How can you extend your hand of kindness when it is so wrapped up and around your weapon of mass destruction—your phone, ready to point aim and shoot.

Willingness to admit you are not supposed to be somewhere is the first step to admittance. Of a life well lived. In service to and of others.

In the meantime.

We have daily opportunities. To respect those who fought before us, the ones who fight among us, the ones who share their stories of faults and failings.

A community of real people.

Who may have just gotten there.

BUT.

By God’s grace.

They got there.

The key is availability.

Patience.

And a whole lotta strength in the face of one another.

The one who blinks first……….?

I dunno.

What you know. And I would no longer hazard a guess.

BECAUSE IT WOULD BE, WELL, A HAZARD.

Task completion

Daily task completion.

May be more than we bargained for, or think we bargained for. Personal inadequacy is not just for the rich and famous or the troubled middle or the less than. It is a part of us all.

Perhaps, that is why milk and cookies, or cookies and milk sound so, well simple.

But. They do help!😃

Just sayin’.

Let’s at least stop the sugar policing of one another. That is a small but kind start. Instead of looking at one another’s papers, let’s also stop looking also at one another’s plates.😃

We will encounter small and large issues every day.

Our reactions will gauge our next step.

Our next move.

Our next thought.

Our next groove move💃🕺🏻🤳🏻…..

🤳🏻🤳🏻🤳🏻🤳🏻?

Your call.

Your move.

Just remember.

If you wouldn’t do it in kindergarten. Why would you do it today?

It is worth repeating.

The good. The honor. The truth

Over and over and over and over.

With grace and attractiveness.

See how it goes.

See how it works.

Back to the Basics.

For you!

For me!