You Think YOU
Have It Tough!
Here's some advice that Bill Gates
was reported to have dished out at a high school
speech about 11 things they would not learn in school. The idea that
Bill Gates delivered this speech is an urban legend, but has some pretty
good ideas, so I am repeating it here.
This is reported to have actually
been written by Charles J. Sykes,
author of the book "Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel
Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add."
He talked about how
"feel-good," politically correct teaching has created a full generation of kids
with no concept of reality and how this has set them up for failure in the real world.
Rules 12, 13, and 14 are often left out of the Bill Gates version, but are
included here.
RULE 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.
RULE 2
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3
You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be
a vice president with a car phone. You have to earn both.
RULE 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have
tenure.
RULE 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it
opportunity.
RULE 6
If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes - learn
from them.
RULE 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that
way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool
you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents'
generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some
schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want
to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in
real life.
RULE 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers
are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee
shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11
Be nice to nerds. Because if you don't get off
your ass and get competitive, chances are you'll end up working for one.
RULE 12
Smoking does not make
you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising,
watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to
anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or
pierced body parts.
RULE 13
You are not immortal.
(See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying
young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen
one of your peers at room temperature lately.
RULE 14
Enjoy this while you
can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But
someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should
start now. You're welcome.
More Information:
Snopes Urban Legends Page
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