The Eclectic Musings of Ravyncrow

2004-05-10

11 Rules of Life As We Know It

My sister-in-law sent me this today and it seems so fitting �. Don�t believe ol� Bill really said all this, since a few years ago another, totally different wordage one was going around. But the sentiment is oh so appropriate these days.

To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

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.

Then again, for a lot of the kids from some of the wealthier families in the nation, all this IS real life for them since they�ll likely inherit from their parents (money and jobs and status) so won�t ever have to deal with a lot of this. Some, yes. I�m certainly not saying the wealthy don�t experience �real life� just because they have money. But it�s a different world, with different challenges. And either way, it seems they aren�t really being taught how to deal with any of it anymore, anywhere.

More later � just passing that one along.

Mitaquye Oyasin

Walk in Balance

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