With May being the month of graduations, both from high school as well as college, I wanted to pass along some rules to live by. Feel free to pass them along to a young person, they are invaluable if followed. The author is Charles Sykes and I have condensed for the blog.

Rule 1…. Life is NOT fair – get used to it

Rule 2…. The world does not 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 $40 thousand a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a smart phone, until you earn both

Rule 4…. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure

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 parent’s 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 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

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 12… Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re Welcome