Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Menial Work is Dignified

The below mentioned piece of counsel was caught transversing the ethereal space of the internet at the speed of light.

It relates to a point by point speech purportedly made by the multi-billionaire Bill Gates to a bunch of high school kids. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created (and continues to create) a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

The 11 Reality Checks are:


Reality 1:
Life is not fair - get used to it!

Reality 2:
The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Reality 3:
You will NOT make vast amounts of money right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a company car until you earn both.

Reality 4:
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Reality 5:
Menial work is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for menial work: they called it opportunity.

Reality 6:
If you mess up, it’s not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Reality 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.

Reality 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.

Reality 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.

Reality 10:
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to go to the office.

Reality 11:
Be nice to people. Chances are you'll end up working for one.


Interesting reality checks that are not in keeping with the new-age mentality of positive self esteem and constructive approbation. Yet, all real and glaringly hard.

To my mind, the stated reality checks should be read by all who perceive the democratic processes as being one where ‘take take take’ is the rule of thumb.

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