The Wisdom Of Childhood

Most of what I really need to now 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 sandbox at nursery 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 milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant comes 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 plastic cup...they all die. So do we.
And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: Look. Everything you need to know is there somewhere: The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation; Ecology and politics and sane living.
Think of what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk at 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or, if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. 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.

George Stern, Jr.


The Prime Condition Of Happiness

The following are the ideas of John Burroughs. "There is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? It is one of the simplest things in the world and within reach of all. If this secret were something I could put up at auction, what a throng of bidders I should have, and what high ones! Only the wise ones can guess what it is.
Some might say it is health, or money, or friends, or this or that possession, but you may have all these things and not be happy. You might have fame and power, and not be happy. I maintain there is one thing more necessary to a happy life than any other, though health and money and friends and home are all important. That one thing is-what?
The sick man will say, health: the poor man, wealth; the ambitious man, power; the scholar, knowledge; the overworked man, rest.
Without the one thing I have in mind, none of these things would long help their possessors to be happy. We could not long be happy without food or drink or clothes or shelter, but we may have all these things to perfection and still want the prime condition of happiness. It is often said that a contented mind is the first condition of happiness, but what is the first condition of a contented mind?
You will be disappointed when I tell you what this all important thing is-it is so common, so near at hand, and so many people have so much of it and yet are not happy. They have too much of it or else the kind that is not suited to them. What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going-the physical, the moral and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be!
Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Happiness comes most to persons who seek it least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it. How important is health to happiness; yet the best promoter of health is something to do. Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces that are in him."

George Stern, Jr.

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They say NOBODY is perfect so just call me NOBODY

There are two ways to live, one is as if nothing is a miracle, the other as if everything is.

Albert Einstein