Bill Gate's Advice to High School Students

It's not very often that I receive emails such as this but this time I received it from within my organization which I think also makes a bit of sense. Why do I say that is because there seems to be a trend going now (from my personal observation) that the younger generation seem to want more for less. Heck, I even admit it that I definitely fall into that category and have wayward dreams of having it all whilst floating on cloud 9, but only to fall back onto the hard floor of reality.

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I am digressing. The fact of the matter is, Bill Gates went to a high school and gave this piece of advice to them. Frankly, I am not too sure whether it is authentic or whether he actually said those words but hey, it made sense to me. The comments in red are by me.

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. (I guess this advice was given before a mobile phone was created?)

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. (The same should be for serving food, cleaning toilets, sweeping the roads)

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..(reminds me of Friends, haha!)

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
These rules definitely are not easy to swallow but so is medicine and it's intention is to heal you. The same goes for advice, either we take it with open minds and a willing heart or we can shun away from it, there is no right or wrong in that.