Tuesday, March 23, 2010

From One Who Should Know

This is a list of 'life rules' Bill Gates apparently laid out in a fairly recent High School speech. Sent to me by a friend whose political views on paper wouldn't seem to line up with mine, but in practical terms she and I find a lot to agree upon. Frankly most men would be willing to overlook a lot of differences in opinion given how attractive this girl is. Ahem.

Anyway, the list:

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world doesn'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.

4 comments:

  1. Rule six: There is NOOOOO ...

    Rule six.

    Rule seven--best left unquoted. Heh.

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  2. Man, and I thought Rule 5 had something to do with scantily-clad females =/

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  3. Oh, and now that I'm logged in: thank you, my friend.

    And what's politics got to do with it ... ? Heh.

    I do agree with much that is said above, if it seems to me a bit poorly/boisterously written. I'm glad you liked it - I don't forward things to you lightly! This seemed like it kind of fed in to some of the mollycoddling posts you've put up in the past, not least "This", only recently.

    It also, unfortunately, reminds me of the current dramas at my own grownup daytime activity, so I'm going to head back to my blog and knock that nice little nerdly post holding the top spot down for some linty navel-gazing which will bore the life out of your readers should they venture forth ...

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  4. @ECM: hee! kog, comments or corrections? You still have a Python set, don't you?

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