Found in many places on the 'net, repeated often, frequently mis-attributed, and it's popular because there is truth. '''14 Rules for the Real World by Charles J. Sykes''' 1. '''Life is not fair''' ** Get used to it. 1. '''The world won't care about your self-esteem.''' ** The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. 1. '''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. 1. '''If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss.''' ** He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it. 1. '''Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.''' ** Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity. 1. '''If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault.''' ** Don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them. 1. '''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. 1. '''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. 1. '''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. 1. '''Television is NOT real life.''' ** In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. 1. '''Be nice to nerds.''' ** Chances are you'll end up working for one. 1. '''Smoking does not make you look cool.''' ** It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts. 1. '''You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.)''' ** If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately. 1. '''Enjoy this while you can.''' ** Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome. A lot of this sounds pretty smug, really. But like so many things in life, don't dismiss them just because you can find flaws. Instead, try to learn something of value. Take the chance to become a better person. ---- CategoryLifeStrategies