dumb down thyself

got this from the philosophy group for the class i'm taking this summer. apparently it's by charles sykes, in his book DUMBING DOWN OUR KIDS, with some revision by whoever posted it on the forum.

rule 1: life is not fair; get used to it. the average teenager uses the phrase "this (or that) sucks" 8.6 times a day.

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 cell 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 screw up, it's not your parents' fault, it's COMPLETELY YOURS. so don't whine about your mistakes. learn from them.

rule 7: yefore 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 blood-sucking parasites or saving them whales, 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; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. this, of course, 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 ---neither do christmas or springbreak--- and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. do that on your own time.

rule 10: television is NOT real life. your life is not a sitcom. your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. 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.

oh, please pay full attention to rule #11 and keep that in mind. =P