Tought for the Day

Be part of the solution, not the problem!

Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. “Always we hear from teenagers ‘what can we do, where can we go?”

My answer is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you’ve finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you a recreational facility and your parents do not owe you fun.

“The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you.

 

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

Rule 2: The world won'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 are. 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' SPEECH TO MT. WHITNEY HIGH SCHOOL in Visalia, California.

 

Excellent words of advice for the young. Have to be sure to make a copy of both and hang them on the wall in the kids bedrooms so that they can learn to live by them once they have both learned to read. My son is surely on his way, but the daughter's still working on being a princess and after all she is only 3. LOL

 

A true mistake should never be over looked. It is one of the best learning tools today. So long as you recognize, acknowledge, accept, own and learn from them. I made this one up all by myself. From experience.

 

Snopes can help you decipher the rhetoric about the posts above.

snopes.com: Bill Gates Commencement Speech

I understand what people are trying to get at though and have my own contribution. I was at work and saw an announcement for an English scholarship based on an essay submission. The essay topic was "the greatest gift your family ever gave you".

I thought about it for about 30 seconds and one word popped into my head. Failure. Why that word? Because I was taught that failure is not to be feared. I was taught that failure is an inherent risk when you push to excel at anything you do. I learned that failure is part of the path to success. It is how you eliminate what doesn't work and identify what does. By teaching me fail SUCCESSFULLY, my family showed me that I should never fear failure. I should never fear stepping outside my comfort zone and pushing the limits of my abilities. That is how you learn where your limits are. The wise person will then work hard to improve those weak areas.

I do not believe in biased political, fundamentalist, propagandist rhetoric. What I believe is that our HUMANITY is universal and the love respect and example of your family can foster a drive for success. When you are shown EXAMPLES. When you see DEMONSTRATED BEHAVIOR about how to live your life based on respect, love and dignity. That is when your family is providing you the essential tools for a life full of successful failures. All I have achieved, has been founded on daring to challenge failure in every are of my life. That is what I hope to pass on to my child by my living example and it is what I wish upon all those who I interact with. May your lives be filled with successful failures and may you live without fear.

Jose

 

Understood. But regardless, who ever wrote it, it is damned good piece of advice.

 

I thought this was a bit fitting for this thread...

 

I think I can buy into that!