Conquer the Cloud

Do you ever wake up on the absolute wrong side of the bed? Like, you’re so far over that you might as well just go back, curl up, and wait for tomorrow? Everything sucks, the world sucks, why am I even bothering, I’m tired, achy, and grumpy…and it’s raining. Ugh! Life!

And then…and then. It’s like the universe at large sees your plight and hands you a little ray of sunshine as if to remind you that the world is not a giant, dark cloud of doom and gloom…and that there’s actually quite a lot to be happy about. Goodness is out there, and we can shake ourselves out of our funk. I feel like I’m writing about this concept a lot these days: this idea of getting ourselves out of our collective funks and doing something, anything, to move forward instead of taking 10 steps backward. Not staying in the doom and gloom. This journey through the world of plastic pollution and the general life journey, is teaching me that it’s a constant practice/battle/struggle/opportunity for improvement. And that some of the best lessons and best practices are ones we didn’t even consciously learn.

Cue Robert Fulghum.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Snappy, irritable, and cold…three of my least favorite adjectives. Then, I opened my email up and there was a note from my Dad, with a reminder of an old book we’ve read many times and one I had totally forgotten about. It was the ray of sunshine I needed. Consider this ray of sunshine passed on to you, dear reader!

The synopsis, from my Dad: “…basically a series of statements about how the practical stuff you learn when you are very young (i.e., sharing, caring, sticking together, etc.) carries over through the rest of your life.”

Enjoy. 🙂

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
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 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.