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1.
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Life
is not fair. Get used to it. |
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2.
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The world won't
care about your self-esteem as much as your school does.
The world will expect you to accomplish something before
you feel good about yourself. |
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3.
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You will not make
forty thousand dollars a year right out of high school
and you won't be a VP with a car phone until you earn
both. |
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4.
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If you think your
teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss - he or
she doesn't have tenure. |
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5.
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Flipping burgers
is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a
different word for flipping burgers; they called it
opportunity. |
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6.
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If you screw up
it is not your parents' fault, so don't whine about
your mistakes, learn from them. |
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7.
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Before you were
born your parents weren't as boring as they are now.
They got that way cleaning your room and listening to
you telling them how idealistic you are. So before you
save the rainforest from the blood-sucking parasites
of your parents' generation, try de-lousing the closet
in your own room. |
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8.
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Your school may
have done away with winners and losers but life hasn't.
In some schools they have abolished failing grades,
and they will 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. |
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9.
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Life is not divided
into semesters, you do not get summers off, and very
few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.
Do that on your own time. |
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10.
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TV is not real
life. In real life people actually have to leave the
coffee shop and go to jobs. |
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11.
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Be nice to nerds,
chances are you will end up working for nerds. |
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12.
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Smoking does not
make you cool it makes you moronic. Ditto for purple
hair and pierced body parts. |
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13.
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Living fast and
dying young is romantic only until you see one of your
peers at room temperature. |
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14.
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Get up when you
fall down. Get up when you-fall down. Michael Jordan
has missed the basket nine thousand times. MJ has lost
almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times MJ has
been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
MJ says over and over and over again, "I have failed,
that's what it costs to succeed." |
Graduates, in all other dimensions you
are an improvement over any generations which preceded yours.
Now, remembering these things, you can take it from here.
