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 sandpile 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 aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat. . . .
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 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.
- Robert Fulghum, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", 1988
Good, genuine, sincere people develop those good, genuine, and sincere skills when they are in their youth, yeah, very young. Before the innocence of youth fades, before the age of accountability, before we succumb to the winds and wiles of the adversary, we learn everything we need to know to be decent people. That is, as long as there are good, decent role models and examples to emulate in our lives.
I often wonder if I am doing the exact negative thing that I see in others, that I don't want to emulate. For example, when I think to myself, "well that was rude. I will never treat somebody like that." But....do I? Do I treat others, intentionally or not, in a way that is not positive or Christlike? Afterall, I see myself differently than everyone else sees me. So, how do others see me? Do I embody a negative characteristic that others do not want in their own character? Do I come off as prideful? Do I come off as arrogant? Or seemingly better than another? Does Christ see me as others see me?
I know there is still pride in my person. But how much? More than I realize? Probably. Pride is enmity towards God. Well what exactly is enmity? Enmity is hatred towards. What does that mean? I don't hate God. Far from it. But when I give in to natural tendencies, I'm telling Him that this is more important to me than His way. Without the harsh connotation of the word "hatred", I am still building enmity between God and me. Therefore, I am still with pride and I am not showing love towards God.
My first step is realizing my prideful actions. See myself as I am seen. The second, is fixing them so that enmity lessens.