I received this forward this morning, purportedly to be a speech Bill Gates gave to some high school kids. I don't know if that's true or not, but I thought I'd share anyway because I liked it.
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 $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
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 thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's 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. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
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7 comments:
I am a big fan of eight, nine and eleven. I especially like eleven - as a Maths teacher, my immediate boss is always a nerd!
Of sorts.
Wouldn't it be swell in #9 were true though? Summers off! So fantastic!
Amen to that!
Wow. I have to say that apart from the last point, I really, really dislike the whole thing.
But then ihijix.
heh.... Nerds love me. It's kinda tragic actually.
Thanks for posting this - I like reading these little ditties. I liked the idea of some of it - but it really seemed that he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder/bitter. Like he is trying to deal with years of being shoved in lockers.
I love the idea of talking tough to kids, but he sounds like he is more dealing with his own issues than trying to give teens a head's up on what they need to know about "real life".
Then again, I don't yet know that I've entered real life - so what they hell am I talking about :)
I've read this at some point, and I love it.
So very true.
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