All You Really Need To Know

Saturday Stories

March 22, 2019

All You Really Need To Know

By Jonathan Aquino

I'm intrigued by an episode of "DC's Legends of Tomorrow." The story is about Rip Hunter, a time-traveling Englishman like Doctor Who, who has gathered some of the heroes from "Arrow" and "The Flash" – Atom, Hawkgirl, Hawkman and Firestorm. They travel through time to find and kill an immortal named Vandal Savage who will destroy the world in 2166. An assassin known as The Pilgrim went to their childhood to erase them from the timeline, so they went back in time to save their younger selves.

And I think to myself: If I meet my younger self, what would I say to him? I'll tell him that he is loved and he is inherently worthy of being loved, that he has never been alone and he already has everything he needs. I would ask him to not lose faith in humanity. A part of me would want to protect him from some of the things to come, yet another part wants him to be free to explore on his own because that is the only way to learn, to grow, and hopefully, to find wisdom.

I would try to explain that the world can be complicated, that people are not always what you thought them to be, and there will be times when we'll do something we won't be proud about. I'd tell him it's okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them, that there is no shame in falling as long as we get up again. And I would also tell him that the world is filled with good and decent people, and that life is full of so many beautiful things that we take for granted or refuse to see. 

And, if I could, I would give him some books, the ones that pointed me in the right direction, like "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten," the beloved classic by Robert Fulghum. It's all there – "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" ... "Live a balanced life" ... "Be aware of wonder..." Sometimes – oftentimes – to be the best version of who we are, we have to get back to the basics.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

Photo courtesy of Amazon