Recently an e-mail was sent out to the student body containing a summary of a speech Bill Gates allegedly gave to a public high school in regard to how to succeed in life.

A quick Google search reveals that Gates' authorship of these rules is an urban legend. These rules don't come from Gates; they come from a conservative writer named Charles J. Sykes, and this book seems to be pretty good evidence of that.

But the identity of the author doesn't necessarily detract from the substance of the remarks, which is what this blog entry is about.

The point of the "speech" was, in essence, that "feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality." The author established a list of 11 rules to keep in mind about the differences between school and "the real world."

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 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.

Personally, I know I'm tired of the excessive politically correct statements; there is a point where it simply goes too far. It's come to a point where it's not only the words we are using ("sportsmanship" is now "sportspersonship," and "short" is now "vertically challenged"), but what we're physically allowing students to do.

Swings are being banned from parks because kids have the potential to fall off, and the game of tag is banned from some elementary school playgrounds due to self-esteem issues and the risk of injury. Even when I was in elementary school it didn't go that far. We fell off swings and see-saws. Maybe one kid would be sent inside to get band aids, but by the next day it was fine.

On the other hand, I don't agree with all of these "rules" in the sense that some seem to portray the image that big business (and therefore big money) is a result of heartless, emotionless, and self-centered determination. It may be that way now, but what's to say that's how it should be?

The author says that the world doesn't care about your self-esteem, but that's not a good thing. Teaching our children to develop a sense of self-identity and high self-esteem should be considered our goal, not one of our flaws, because we shouldn't be shoving them out into a job where they will be pushed and pulled this way and that and won't even be able to establish themselves.

Teaching kids the importance of such qualities as individualism will then hopefully allow the next generation of bosses and CEOs to appreciate their workers at a new level. It won't be just one big heartless capitalist machine.

At the same time, though, there's a difference in promoting such qualities and going overboard with them. A ban on playing tag should seem ridiculous; we need to grow up some time or another. The point is finding where to draw that line between overboard and acceptable.

Some of these points were a reality check, though, that I very much agreed with. He pointed out that the nerds tend to be the ones who succeed in life, and that you can't expect to come out of school and immediately make the salary you want.

These seem to be things that kids neglect to recognize, and should be figured out before the time comes that you're working for the boy you teased in high school … and he's decided to give you half the pay you thought you would be getting.

In general, you can evaluate the rules on your own. Some may seem overly blunt, and some may seem dead-on. It's a matter of your optimism, opinions, and experience that will determine to what level you agree with the author.