Quote:
Originally posted by Memnoch:
Some advice from the Big Cahuna himself.
Great words of advice from Bill Gates—no beating around the
bush and sugar coating....just telling it like it is!
This is great - kinda harsh but something kids need to know .....
Bill Gates’ Words of Wisdom
To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid,
here’s
some advice that Bill Gates gave to high school students.
He spoke about the 11 rules that the students DID NOT LEARN in school
and
also about how the “feel-good politically correct” teachings created a
full
generation of kids with no concept of reality and further, he told them
that
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 40 thousand dollars 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.
He
doesn’t have tenure.
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 are. So before you save the
rain
forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing 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 the 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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Not jumping on this bandwagon -- here is a brief commentary on these "principles" :
Rule # 1: This doesn't mean one should go out of one's way to screw over others and be generally unfair. One should strive to make life more fair -- oops, I suppose Gates can't reconcile that with his own approach to life and "success" though.
Rule # 2: One of my pet peeves is when people couch their own personal beliefs as what "the world" believes.
Rule # 3: Well, it is possible, just unusual. But so what? Is this where we applaud Mr. Gates profundity?
Rule # 4: Bosses and teachers both run the full spectrum from assholes to cool people, tough to lenient, etc.
Rule # 5: Yea, preach to them about the joys of minimum wage jobs Mr. Billionare.
Rule # 6: This says a lot about Mr. Gates own relatively easy path in life.
Rule # 7: Yea, call them trash who need to be deloused. Way to go on the motivational speech there Bill.
Rule # 8: Hmmm . . . I don't know, sounds like a lot of jobs out there, like some government positions.
Rule # 9: Right, corporations are only interested in you as a slave and only care about money. Isn't it great that they so largely dictate the structure of our society?
Rule # 10: Really, Bill? Damn, where would we be without your keen insight?
Rule # 11: One should strive to be nice to everyone, nerd or not, without the expectation that one will receive financial reward for doing so. Oh wait, Bill can't reconcile that with his own life either. Nevermind.