Guides to life

Words

What’s your favourite word? Does any one word ignite a particular emotion from you? Does any one word stir you on? Makes you want to get up? Or do you just hate a particular word? I seldom have such passion for words. I prefer actions. Although actions do speak louder than words, sometimes, a word just jump at you and say…

hey, wanna get more of me?

I came across the word “Elemental” in a book by Robert Fulghum called All I really Need to know I learned in Kindergarten. He cites the rules in Kindergarten applies to life itself. If followed, you don’t need to try to understand the common jargon that permeates our language today.

For instance, instead of saying

“Studies have shown that human society cannot function without an equitable distribution of the resources of the earth.”

The Kindergarten rules say

“To be fair, we must share.” Period.

I guess adults just have the knack of complicating things. We are so used to complicating things that we hardly see the simple rules that we learned in Kindergarten anymore. According to Robert Fulghum, Kindergarten rules are not kid stuff.

It’s not simple. It’s elemental.

Maybe we should* remind ourselves these elemental rules that we learned when we’re young. To give you some common ones:

• Don’t hit people (we can avoid wars with this).
• Don’t take what’s not yours.
• Clean up your own mess (this trumps all the environmental awareness we try to create).
• Put things back where you found them.

Can you think of more? Have you been using them? Have you forgotten them?

* I think the word “should” should be banned. You either do it or don’t. That’s one word I don’t want to use if possible.

p/s: If you want to keep a list of your favourite words or a list of your hate words, try Wordie.org. Warning, you might get addicted!

© 2008 shang lee . com.