Gates' Rules

Gates' Rules

To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid,
here's some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school
speech about things they did not learn in school.

He talks about how feel-good politically correct teachings have created
a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept sets
them up for failure in the real world.

Here's what he said:

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 de-lousing 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."
You'll have to 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.


Sent in By Carol D.