Meet Mr. Fulghum

So, taking my own advice from yesterday, I’ve pulled out a box of crayons and will set them on my desk again as a reminder to be more childlike, to dream, and to use my imagination.

Yesterday's post quote Robert Lee Fulghum.  Who is he? 

Most of you know him as the guy who wrote All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten.  But he's so much more than that.  25 years later and 7 more best sellers, Mr. Fulghum is still writing.

From his website:

Why do I continue writing? To be useful.
Often, without realizing it, we fill important places in each other’s lives. It’s that way with the guy at the corner grocery, the mechanic at the local garage, the family doctor, teachers, coworkers, and neighbors. Good people who are always “there,” who can be relied upon in small, ordinary ways. People who, by example, teach us, bless us, encourage us, support us, uplift us in the daily-ness of life.
I want to be one of those.
You may be one of those, yourself. There are those who depend on you, watch you, learn from you, are inspired by you, and count on you being in their world. You may never have proof of your importance to them, but you are more important than you may think. There are those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who. We seldom make this mutual influence clear to each other. But being aware of the possibility that you are useful in this world is the doorway into assuring that will come to be true.
My way is to keep writing and sharing that. What’s yours?
Robert Lee Fulghum

What’s your “Why do I…”?  It may be something completely different than writing.  It may be many things.  Robert Fulghum, through his writing, encourages us to keep Carpe diem-ing.

Check him out at http://www.robertleefulghum.com/

By the way, if you’ve never read Fulham essay All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, here is the most quoted part of it:

“These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. 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.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”

Look!  What's your "Why do I . . . ?"

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn