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 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.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.