All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“What is it that the child has to teach?

The child naively believes that everything should be fair

and everyone should be honest,

that only good should prevail,

that everybody should have what they want

and there should be no pain or sadness.

The child believes the world should be perfect

and is outraged to discover it is not.

And the child is right.”

Well, I am turning 47. Today.

I am either 46, 47 or 48 depending on which method or system of ascertaining age, you follow. 46 according to a method of insurance premium calculation (“Age last birthday”), 47 according to reality, and 48 according to the Korean tradition, where a baby is considered one year old at birth, and everyone ages one year on... See more

‘The world is simple and life is simple, too’—if there is anything in this thesis that might contain truth, it would be life from a child’s point of view. Children do not have any obvious duties, like paying taxes or going to work. They are protected by their parents and society, and can spend days free from care. They can imagine a future that goe

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Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any of that guidance, how pertinent any of that wisdom, in the end you di... See more