The text is actually a pared-down version of piece that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune on September 19, 1996. It was written by Charles J Sykes best known as the author of “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add.” Drastically edited by person(s) unknown, it began making the email rounds under Bill Gates’ name in February 2000. But like Bill said, Life isn’t fair; get used to it Charlie Sykes. Who can you believe these days?
You’ve heard of the Ten Commandments – well, Bill Gates (love him or hate him) has taken it one rule further…
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.
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.
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.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Bill Gates gave this speech at a High School graduation in California. Or did he? I should tell you there is also a theory that former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates neither wrote these words nor delivered them in a speech to high school students or anyone else.
Got this on: http://urbanlegends.about.com/ Got the Picture at: www.freakingnews.com/