I am sure that like me many of you have read these words before, but there are some things that cannot be shared too often. If you do not remember the context it was just before his retirement in July 2008, Bill Gates offered the following to a gathering of high school students.
1. “Life is not fair – get used to it.”
2. “The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.”
3. “You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.”
4. “If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.”
5. “If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.”
6. “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 are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.”
7. “Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life may 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.”
8. “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.”
9. “Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.”
10. “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”