photo by Georges van Hoegaerden
It has been widely circulated on the internet that the following 11 rules of Life were from Bill Gates. There’s a tendency among all of us that we would want to glorify and fantasize our popular hero like Bill Gates with an idolized mask. I am not saying that Bill Gates will not have the notion. He probably will agree with them all. But it’s people’s idea of putting words to other people’s mouth that intrigues me. Or is this just purely another Chinese whisper with the original source got lost?
The original text was taken from a book named “Dumbing Down Our Kids” by Charles Sykes, targeted at high school and college graduates, meant to teach “kids” like us the things that we didn’t learn in school.
Here are the 11 rules that have been circulated on the internet and was claimed:
Bill Gates speech: 11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school
And they are not. They are by Charles Sykes.
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.
Charles Sykes actually has written another book with 50 rules of Kids Won’t Learn in School. Apart from the above 11, here are some examples of other rules:
15. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand parents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity…
17. Your parents weren’t as boring before you were born as they are now. They got that ways paying your bills, driving you around, saving for your education, cleaning up your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are.
23. Someday, you may have to grow up and actually move out of your parent’s house.
31. Naked people looked different in real life.
33. Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
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