Dear all,

好像記得是大學時代，讀到這一篇文章。
這麼多年來常常會在心中響起的一句是--
Clean up your own mess!!!
(　這好像成為我的一個生命守則??? 常常會在一些處境中默唸出這一句話。 )
人出生於世，究竟是來混亂世間一遭，還是能對世界有所貢獻？
是要滿足多少自己的願望才甘心，還是對自己的所作所為負責就好？
至少我們要做到 clean up our own mess!!!
我想這一篇文章很多人都知道，也或多或少有自己的心得。
剛才與家人聊天，心中又浮現這一句話，於是把原文找出來，也跟各位分享。
不很確定是Robert Fulghum所著，只記得是一本書的title。
而後來在很多幼稚園都已採用這些守則。

這些句子的英文相當簡潔有力。
Robert在平常的事物上見出不平凡的處世真理。難怪會縈懷於人心不已。


---------------------------------------------------------------太陰

Sub: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 university mountain, but there in the sand-pit at kindergarten. 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 are sorry when you hurt somebody.

*Wash your hands before you eat.

*Flush the toilet.

*Warm cookies and milk are good for you.

*Live a balanced live - learn a little and think a little and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day a little.

*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 yoghourt carton: The roots go down an the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

*Cats and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the yoghourt carton - they all die. So do we.

*And then remember your first reading book and the first word you learned - the biggest of all - LOOK.


Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule (treat the others as you would like them to treat you) and love and basic sanition. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take one of these 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 we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if all governments had 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 world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Copyright © 1986, 1988 by Robert Fulghum.