12 Rules for Young Adults

 Charles Sykes, the author of “Dumbing Down Our Kids”, volunteered for high school and college students a list of things that they did not learn in school.

1. Life is not fair; get used to it.

2. The world won’t care about your self-esteem.  The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

3. You will not make $40,000 per year right out of high school.  You won’t be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.  He doesn’t have tenure.

5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.  Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.

6. If you screw up, it’s not your parents’ fault so don’t whine about your mistakes.  Learn from them.

7. Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now.  They got that way paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell how idealistic you are.  So before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not.  In some schools they have abolished failing grades.  They’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer.  This of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

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.

10. Television is not real life.  In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and they actually have two jobs.

11. Be nice to nerds.  Chances are you’ll end up working for them.

12. Living fast and dying young is romantic only until you see one of your peers in the funeral home.