Just Three Things

Robert Fulghum wrote a book filled with essays on how to live a meaningful life. It’s called, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I’ve given his concept some thought, and while I agree with his credo about sharing and playing fair and the other half a dozen things he mentions, I can sum up how to live a “best” life by focusing on three simple ideas: 1) a mom; 2) a ball; and 3) a sippy cup.

In the immortal words of the famous HVAC instructor, Glenn Kerstetter, “Hear me out.”

Number One – a Mom

We all have one (otherwise we wouldn’t be here), but sadly, not everybody has or had a great one, or even one that was present. For those not blessed with a great maternal figure, imagine the ideal mom.

She’s filled with unconditional love. She accepts you for who you are, and beams with pride whether you succeed or fail. When you were small and tired or scared, she carried you. Sometimes she’d heft you onto her hip just to give you a sneak peek at the view from a grownup’s height. If you fell, she picked you up.

Now imagine a world where everyone had a mom like that. Where everyone felt loved unconditionally and accepted whether they spilled the metaphorical milk or whether they remembered to put the carton back in the fridge. If people felt accepted for who they were, they’d be more likely to accept others for themselves.

There’s no way to create a world like that since nobody can go back and get re-raised by an adoring parent. So we can either give it up as a lost cause or start small. With one person.

What lone person in your orbit can shower you with unconditional love? Who can accept you “warts” and all? That person exists no matter what your relational status is, because that person is you.

You can be the ideal “mom” to yourself by giving yourself some slack when you feel “less than.” No ideal mom would call you a loser or an idiot. If you catch yourself thinking negative self-talk remember that ideal mom. That mom smiles as she wipes up the lake of milk and Cheerios rolling off the breakfast table because an uncoordinated hand tipped over the bowl. Think of a loving mom’s encouraging smile when you’re afraid to try something new. Okay, now I’m annoying myself with this maudlin stuff, but you get the idea.

Number Two – a Ball

To get to this point, we need to backtrack for some context:

Late last spring, as school started to wind down, a co-worker brought her toddler daughter for a visit. A group of us hovered around the reception area enthralled, watching the little girl totter from one end of the room to the other. She clasped in one hand a banana-yellow ball the size of a tangerine. For entertainment – I can’t say who was more entertained, the child or all the adults goggling at her – she tossed the ball, then toddled after it, scooped it up, and threw it again, repeating the cycle. At one point, the ball rolled toward me, and I gave it a tap with the toe of my shoe, rolling it back to her. It became our game. She’d throw the ball to me. I blame gravity that the ball only stayed airborne for six inches before it dropped. The fact that it rolled ten feet to where I stood is a testament to the kid’s throwing arm. And that’s what we did, she threw, the ball rolled, I tapped it, and it rolled back to her. Sometimes I nudged it too hard, requiring her to rumble after it. When that happened, I’d say, “Uh oh!” The whole time we played, I didn’t worry about the state of the world. I didn’t agonize over how my next book might end. I didn’t even wonder what snacks might be in the teacher’s kitchen when we finished. As her mom watched on, all that mattered was getting that little yellow ball back to that little girl.

I think we can agree that picture books have been written with less of a plot, but we created a lesson from our activity. Don’t just embrace the moment, have a purpose. And don’t forget to balance work with play.

Number Three – a Sippy Cup

When traveling with a tiny human, multiple accessories are required. This includes the awesomely clever “sippy cup.” Anyone who frequents eating establishments that provide to-go drinks has seen, and drunk from, a similarly shaped plastic lid. It limits excess spillage if one should happen to accidentally knock it over.

What life lesson, you might ask, could possibly come from a plastic beverage container? There are two. First, a sippy cup is an awesome example of innovation. That “no-spill” thing is genius. We don’t necessarily have to make everything easier in life – a bit of a challenge never hurt anybody – but coming up with ideas to make life better is a worthy goal. Second, a sippy cup can be a metaphor for nourishment, both physical and spiritual. The sad fact that not everybody has food brings us back to that number one idea. What ideal mom wouldn’t feed her kids?

Rich, poor, famous, or invisible. We all yearn for those three simple concepts: A mom, a ball, and a sippy cup. We don’t just need them to survive. They help us thrive.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go outside and cheer myself on as I kick a ball around the backyard. 🙂