Monday, September 18, 2006

things school will not teach you

I made a mistake with this one. Previously attributed it to Bill Gates but apparently its from http://www.snopes2.com/language/document/liferule.htm.
Have added the last three which were previously missed out.

Things school will not teach you.
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.

Rule No. 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 No. 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 No. 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.

1 comment:

Jamie Cole said...

No, no, no, no, no! Peter, whenever you see something like this, you need to check it out. Ten seconds on Google and you would have discovered this list is not from Bill Gates at all. I mean, come one, has Bill gates ever been credited with real wisdom (or the ability to predict much at all)? That Bill wrote this is an urban legend. You should know better than to accept such things at face value.

The real list also includes three very challenging rules at the end. My advise would be to get a copy of Charles J. Syles book, the real author, as it seems he's got a good handle on the education system of liberal western countries. I'm sure you'll like it. For now, read the true story about this list, and please - post the truth in your blog.

http://www.snopes2.com/language/document/liferule.htm