
Some rules kids won't learn in school (1996) - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito/teaching/mack/loo/interessante.html
======
Almaviva
For me, this advice is basically useless bullshit. Being a kid sucked. Freedom
is more than worth all of the advantages. Adulthood isn't hard. Making money
isn't that hard either. If you can't find a more valuable way to spend free
time in your teenage years than flipping burgers for minimum wage, you aren't
very resourceful.

You don't have to settle for shitty bosses. You are allowed to have as much
free time as you want and afford, and if I want to spend some of it watching
TV, then pretentious twits can kiss my ass.

What I did wish I knew was that the most precious part of youth is in fact the
social, romantic, and sexual opportunities. If I would have known then what I
know now: that all my appeal to women would somehow vanish in my thirties and
that I'd experience nothing but romantic rejection for years, I would have
planned my life extremely differently. Anyone who says you can take for
granted that men have it easier in their thirties is full of shit.

The single most important thing I should have done in youth would have been to
optimize my chances for sexual and romantic relationships with a chance to
last a lifetime. Having this or not (not money) is the difference between
years of relative bliss and years of feeling that life is basically fucking
pointless.

Yes I'm angry.

~~~
zackattack
Can you satisfy my curiosity and tell me more about your situation?

~~~
Almaviva
There's not that much to say. I'm a below average looking guy who used to be
able to attract a woman and now, as far as I've been able to tell over the
last few years, I'm universally rejected romantically and sexually.

I've been reading the guides out there for years and I don't do any of the
classic mistakes that I'm aware of. My best guesses are that, in addition to a
few physical flaws (nothing major) it's about changing expectations of women.
I'm 35 and I look 22 and still act like a kid in some ways and am quite
socially awkward. I don't think I have the verbal skills to pull off those
moves where you put on a puppet show in order to push the right buttons and
fuck women, and that's not what I want anyway. (I'd like nothing more in life
than to meet a single woman who was attracted to me and with whom I could be
myself with.) I have a personality where I don't take bullshit from anyone and
if I'm asked a question I give the answer. Everyone I meet likes me and I hear
lines like "You're smart and interesting but I don't know if the chemistry is
there" consistently.

I've been doing things like internet dating, speed dating, a salsa classes,
and I'm a pretty accomplished singer, and some guys actually have to try
pretty hard not to attract women doing these things!

~~~
armandososa
You are trying too hard.

~~~
Almaviva
Ok, your personality and self is such that just by acting naturally women are
attracted to you. Congratulations, you get yours, Jack. It just isn't so with
me. I have one personality with everyone, women, men, pets, kids, who-fucking-
ever. I don't even raise my pulse much meeting women anymore because I'm so
hardened to romantic rejection, and I know the pained looks they get when they
realize they aren't attracted to me and can't quite figure out why.

~~~
mypostingcareer
you only posted on the internet so you could reject all theories other than
"life is unfair to me"...go see a therapist because you obviously have
personality issues...oh wait I can already hear the cued up excuse why you
don't need to actually do anything to improve yourself, well just go fuck
yourself then faggot

~~~
Almaviva
Whether or not I'm a gay hermaphrodite, I was responding to a post about
advice to young people, and saying what I wish I knew as a young person was
relevant.

In my case, this would have been to ignore pretentious fuckwads who say how
difficult life is. It's easy. The hard part (for me, not necessarily you) is
impressing women, and it's also the single largest thing affecting long term
happiness. Perhaps there are some young people (not all) who would benefit
from hearing this, because you don't hear it very much.

~~~
zackattack
Have you thought about studying these skills?

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill-
clinton...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill-clinton-
reality-distortion-field/)

Hacking awkwardness away.

------
dgouldin
Perhaps I'm alone or in the vast minority, but I love being an adult and would
never trade it for the "good old days" of being a kid. I can completely
identify with the complaints of teens Skyes rails about. My work gives me a
sense of accomplishment and challenge that structured education never did. In
my personal life, I never have to worry that decisions are made for me without
an understanding of my perspective as I'm the one making those decisions. The
range of experiences open to me is therefore much broader and more satisfying.

Rather, my advice to teens would be: "Just hang in there and try to make good
decisions when you can. Your life is one big transition, and transitions are
hard. Be assured, life will get much better when you come out the other side."

~~~
bluedanieru
That's because you're not a loser adult, so you don't have to look back on
your childhood - when 'loser' wasn't really defined - with some sort of
contrived fondness. Like the author.

------
dasil003
This, just like the "dear old people" article comes off to me as
overgeneralized whining. Maybe it's just because at 32 I'm smack in the
middle, but I'm just not comfortable with "this is what's wrong with your
generation" type of articles.

In this case, there are a few important truths so slathered over with
condescension and scorn that as a teenager, I would have no choice but to
rebel. The author forgets, that rebelling is not simple petulance, but is the
final stage of individuation.

I get the impression the author here has a bone to pick, most likely due to
personal regrets or fears, and is turning to browbeating where mentorship is
called for.

~~~
bluedanieru
I honestly doubt there is an 'author' to this regardless of what it says. This
is little more than a collection of rubbish platitudes that accomplish nothing
more than to make a subset of its readers feel better about themselves (it
certainly won't improve anyone's outlook on life with the tone it takes). I'm
really embarrassed for HN that this made the top 5.

~~~
presidentender
How old are you? I'm curious, not accusatory.

~~~
bluedanieru
That's a strange question, why do you want to know? I'm thirty, fwiw.

------
asolove
I wonder about these statements. While many of them are nice to think of as
true, are they?

\- Flipping burgers is "opportunity."

Yes, maybe in the past a strong recommendation from a manager at a high school
job could help you get a post-graduation job. Today, do any colleges even
consider this? In the time you work flipping burgers, you could just as easily
become leader of 12 after-school activities that look "impressive" on a
resume.

Who's to blame for that? Today's lazy kids? Or the generation of boomer hiring
managers and admissions committees who look for "upside potential" instead of
work ethic?

\- Bosses will expect you to work harder than teachers.

Not in my experience. Most of my college-graduate friends have post-graduation
jobs where they have no impact on the company's success, and do mostly
busywork filling out forms and going through the motions. Flipping burgers, at
least you can show some hustle, being nicer and faster and more careful than
your peers. Same in most tech jobs. But if your job is to fill out paperwork
and answer the phones and no one supervises you, how do you measure doing
"better"? And why care if your supervisor can't tell either?

So who is to blame here? Lazy kids? Or boomer corporate structures that
doesn't give junior employees even the smallest responsibility for trying
hard, doesn't mentor them to work harder or more intelligently, and then
promotes those people into management jobs where they continue to not help the
next generation?

I think the real problem here is the Boomers: they rejected the idea of
listening to their parents' generation when they entered the workforce, and
they seriously screwed things up. Today, most businesses expect a high school
or college grad to already know how to work hard, how to give good customer
service, how to prioritize business goals. Where would they have learned this?
Historically, by working a job in school and then being intensively trained
when they start full time. Today, there is no similar process unless you go
into a field controlled by a strong professional society (doctor, pilot,
etc.).

Go find an old 1920's or 50's book (or instructional video) on management. The
younger employee, although not comptent or hard-working, is thought of as a
project that the manager has to look in on, give advice to, occasionally
challenge. How many places today will spend that time on someone just out of
high school or college?

~~~
jarin
I think the key phrase from #5 is "Flipping burgers is not beneath your
dignity", not "They called it opportunity".

It's not about being grateful for a burger flipping job, it's about taking the
burger flipping job when you need to.

For example, my first consulting gig was set to rake in about $5k a month, but
since I didn't know that you can ask for a deposit I had to wait until the end
of the first month to get paid. I had enough money saved up to cover rent, but
I still needed food money so I worked nights for a month as a delivery guy at
Papa John's for the tips.

Funny thing was I busted my ass (cleaning grease traps and doing all of the
other stuff none of the teenagers wanted to do), because I knew I was only
going to be working there for a month, and doing mindless work with my hands
was a nice break from writing ActionScript. I actually felt bad when I quit,
because the manager offered me a $1.25/hour raise to try to get me to stay,
haha (that's actually pretty generous for a minimum wage hourly job).

Anyway, that lesson is something I've spent a lot of time trying to teach my
little brothers, as they tend to try to wait for the perfect job to come
along. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a job that you feel is
"beneath you", while you look for something better. I think it's more "beneath
me" to sit on my ass all day being broke than it is to clean grease traps.

~~~
asolove
Fantastic story, thank you. And you are absolutely right, "menial" work is
really fun if you work hard and know you don't have to do it forever. I spent
a week doing hospitality and loved it. Getting to talk with different people,
help them, run around and jump up and down to get things done right away, and
then seeing people obviously appreciate it.

I wish we could convince more kids to do it, and more adults to take it
seriously.

------
axiom
"Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all
could."

It's funny, but at the time this was written this was kind of a controversial
and insightful statement. Now, it sounds so obvious that it's a cliche.
Amazing how quickly culture can change. This was written barely 10 years ago!

~~~
crikli
Fifteen, wasn't it? 1996 was the "reprinted from" date. The net was really
just breaking public at that point. If I time traveled back to visit 1996-me,
I don't think I could even explain what 2011-me did for a living because the
technology didn't exist yet.

~~~
dasil003
I would say "software applications that run purely on the web" to which the
1996-me would say "how do you even _do_ that?"

~~~
Samuel_Michon
And that would be a valid question, as 1996-you would be using Netscape
Navigator 2 or Internet Explorer 2. Good luck building web apps for those
browsers ;)

~~~
zackattack
School a youngster. Exactly what would have been so difficult about building a
spreadsheet interface for IE2?

Assuming a crap UI is tolerable for business purposes and assuming that you
wouldn't have to market it.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
There were few web applications back in 1996. I can only think of two major
ones: Lotus had a webmail product called cc:Mail and eBay just started
offering online auctions.

Back then, you wouldn't use PHP, CSS, Javascript, XMLHttpRequest or Flash.
They didn't exist or hadn't matured yet.

Most likely, you would've used a Java based solution, such as NeXT WebObjects.
That's what e-commerce businesses did back then. However, you wouldn't have
developed the product on your own. You would've needed a team and plenty of
funding, in part because WebObjects came with a $50,000 price tag.

I encourage you to read this WebObjects advertorial from april 1997, courtesy
of the Wayback Machine. It's a good illustration of what was considered modern
web development:

[http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970412201603/http://www.n...](http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970412201603/http://www.next.com/WebObjects/Overview.html)

~~~
mgkimsal
You would have used Perl or PHP - I was using both from early 1996, and they
worked just fine. Yes, they hadn't "matured", but they were functional well
before Java or ASP were even available. Server-side Java was not something as
widely available as Perl or PHP, and Java as a language was not written for
the web like PHP was (easily embeddable in HTML, straightforward DB access,
etc).

WebObjects - didn't have any direct experience with that back then, but it and
many other proprietary options were quite pricey, IIRC.

------
araneae
These rules aren't even internally consistent. For instance, 5 and 9 seem to
conflict with 14. If life is short and you need to enjoy it, why would you
spend 40 hours a week flipping burgers?

Rule 12 just seems a bit near-sighted and a little "get off my lawn." I see
people with spiky colored hair and piercings and I think they look cool; it's
because I'm from a different generation. Similarly, smoking used to make you
look cool in the previous generation but it's fallen out of favor.

~~~
jarin
I think the idea behind rule #12 is that dyeing your hair is not a good
substitute for developing a personality.

~~~
Psyonic
This is absolutely true. Although rocking a dyed mohawk for awhile may help
you develop a strong personality. Because you already stand out, you might
worry less about fitting in and be free to express your true self.

------
contrast
But let's not forget an important corollary: many people espousing such lists
about how tough life is and the importance of self-reliance are in fact
ripping you off, lining their own wallets, and flaunting the law until such a
time as they can pay for it to be changed in their favor, at your expense.

So remember that self-esteem is fine in moderation, don't be naive and think
that fairness isn't worth fighting for, and have the spine to stand up for
yourself. Even when some self-serving moralizer has a 14-point list of why you
should just suck it up.

Because what that list doesn't doesn't tell you is that it's not about rules
kids won't learn in school. It's about how no authority figures (including
wannabes such as Sykes) will tell you what isn't in their interests for you to
know.

------
elptacek
I tell my kids, "When someone says something is 'unfair,' what they really
mean is, 'this is not working to my advantage.'"

~~~
arethuza
An even what people think of fair often isn't.

I wish I could remember where I heard this..

Two people have to share a cake. The reasonable person asks for half the cake,
the unreasonable person asks for the whole cake. They compromise and split the
difference - the reasonable person gets quarter of the cake and the
unreasonable person gets three quarters.

Quite often people get more in life simply by expecting more than their fair
share - and it _works_ as most of us are reasonable.

~~~
Swizec
This is a variation of the famous question used to judge the level of
testosterone in men in regards to "alpha" behaviour.

Apparently most people would be ok with at least a 20% share, getting less
than that and they will demand nobody gets any cake.

The more testosterone in your blood, the bigger share you demand. So for
example an average guy will want 50% to 60% of the cake, whereas a more alpha
male will demand 75% and get away with it because the threshold for "no deal"
is 80%.

What this teaches us is: Ask for as much as you can get away with even if it
feels utterly wrong.

~~~
Almaviva
> This is a variation of the famous question used to judge the level of
> testosterone in men in regards to "alpha" behaviour.

As long as they're not smart enough to be self-aware of their own bullshit,
for then they should treat other people fairly no matter how big and hairy a
fucking ape they are.

------
Sakes
Wah wah, what a waste of time and energy. This is just another person with the
attitude of "you think your life is tough? Well mine is tougher."

Paraphrase: You think its tough going to school? Try going to work all year
with a boss.

Wah wah.

He is simply trying to apply his personal life experiences to the masses. My
guess is he never become who he dreamed of becoming. His oversimplification of
these "universal truths" is annoying, and his arrogant self deluded wisdom can
be seen in his final two words....you're welcome.

------
nakkiel
Unfortunately, it's doesn't make any sense until it's too late.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
No, this isn't about hacking or startups, but in response to some of the
comments being made elsewhere about curmudgeons and "entitled new grads" I
thought it worth trotting out this rather elderly piece.

It looks and feels trite - I know - but there are lessons here that are worth
taking on board. In particular, many of the comments are reflected in the more
recent advice often given to entrepreneurs and hackers.

Make of it what you will.

------
alexsb92
I remember reading this or a slightly different version in one of the chain
emails that I was receiving back like 5-6 years ago. The main difference
between this one and the ones I was receiving is that mine were presented as
being said by Bill Gates at a highschool/college talk he gave. Definitely more
interesting that way.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
According to Snopes, that's wrong:

* <http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/schoolrules.asp>

~~~
alexsb92
Yeah I know that now, but until now I didn't bother checking it since I
completely forgot about this anyway.

------
johnycomelater
1\. _Life is not fair._ Sure, it isn't always, but we can try to make it more
fair, for example by acknowledging that people are equal in their humanity.
And _we_ are part of life, not existing passively apart from it. I've noticed
that people who say things like 'life isn't fair' and 'the world is a cruel
place' often act to make it so.

2\. _Self-esteem._ School may state that it cares about pupils' self-esteem,
but, without stating it, and perhaps without even realising, it tries to crush
people's creativity and autonomy. And it often succeeds.

3\. _$40k_. There are plenty of computer programmers who make that much w/o a
degree.

4\. _Bosses are mean_. Plenty of those programmers work from home and don't
have bosses, or they work for bosses who stay well away.

5\. _Flipping burgers_. Unless you're a creative chef then flipping burgers
_is_ beneath your dignity, in the long run. Eventually this will come to be
acknowledged by most people, just as having servants is no longer cool. The
sooner we get robots to do the flipping, the better.

6\. _Don't blame parents_. Plenty of hang ups are passed from parents to their
children via anti-rational memes. I would agree that we shouldn't _blame_ our
parents for this. (Blaming is the opposite of problem solving.)

7\. _Tidiness and bills_. People shouldn't worry about tidiness, which, like
shaving and personal grooming, isn't intrinsically very important. Ditto
spending money on extra cars, expensive clothes and holidays, live sporting
events, doing up houses, school fees, etc. Combating lice is a parental
responsibility. Stop herding children into schools -- that would probably
help!

8\. _Grades_ haven't been abolished just yet, although I think they ought to
be, because they don't measure anything useful, and they cause a lot of upset.

9\. _Eight hours work every day_. See 3. These programmers choose their own
hours. Frequently they enjoy working 12+ hours. And they have long breaks
between contracts. If we are optimistic and keep improving then eventually all
jobs will be like this.

10\. _Televisions_ are physical objects and watching them is part of real
life. Art and entertainment are sources of education and inspiration. If
somebody is watching TV compulsively, this may be a problem, but it's not a
problem to do with TV (maybe he's been damaged by all these rules).

11\. _Be nice to nerds_. Yes! We can judge societies by how they treat nerds.
But go further: _become_ a nerd. Become interested in something.

12\. _Smoking does not make you look cool_. Possibly. However, going on and on
about this is sufficient to cause young people to take up smoking.

13\. _Immortal_. Why can't I be? I expect Aubrey de Grey will begin repairing
my body about 25 years from now. Ultimately I'll be able to start making
backups of myself.

14\. _Enjoy this while you can_. Yes, everyone should try to make the best of
the situation, however old and wherever they are. Tackling problems is fun.
Life is good.

------
greencircle
This is really ironic given <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608>

------
racketeer
complaining about your life is usually not a good way to get others to stop
complaining about theirs..

------
iandanforth
I just read the following for the first time and I thought I'd put down my
responses. The original piece is sad and I pity the author for his loss of
pride and idealism. Lets see how we can turn this into a message of hope ...

    
    
                      Some rules kids won't learn in school
                            Text By Charles J. Sykes
    
                       Printed in San Diego Union Tribune 
                               September 19, 1996
    

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning in
school, but don't. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modest
back-to-school offering, here are some basic rules that may not have found
their way into the standard curriculum.

First off, lets get rid of 'rules.' These are one mans observations on life
and don't hold true for everyone, or all the time. \--- Rule No. 1: Life is
not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, "It's not
fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you
decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started
hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

The better the world is, the more fair it seems. The world should be fair. But
that's not what the author is talking about. The lesson that children don't
learn is that it is very difficult to distinguish personal desire from
objective fairness. For example, it's not fair that I was born to smart
parents, or that I have a nice job and a nice house. But I rarely take the
time to consider the gross unfairness of this situation because it benefits
me. Learning to see when things are unfair because the world needs to be
improved, and when you feel wronged because your desires aren't met is a skill
most teenagers lack. \--- Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about
your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish
something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock.
Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain it's not fair.
(See Rule No. 1)

There is no such thing as the real world, there is only the one world after
all :) In fact those people that love you will always want you to feel good
about yourself. What the author is identifying is not that life outside of
school is uncaring, it's that it is much harder. Problems that you deal with
in school arn't problems at all, they've already been solved. They are tests.
Outside of school you'll see real problems and if you've never faced a real
problem it can be traumatic. Failing at hard things is very common and
students might not be used to it. \--- Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make
$40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or
have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have
a Gap label. Cute anachronisms aside there is much more to this point that
should go into an education. Given early academic choices what can you expect
from the job market? There are well documented statistics, and if you graduate
from school without an awareness of these, you're in trouble. Your degree in
philosophy will put you at the Gap, but your CS degree will probably have a
better return. \--- Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til
you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When
you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

This observation makes me very sad. What life circumstances forced this man to
endure uncaring leadership? Almost every boss I've had did care about me and
wanted to know how I was doing, knew the importance of moral and emotional
health, and had my back in a crunch. The rule here is if your boss doesn't fit
that description and you have any choice at all, leave and leave fast. \---
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents
had a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They
weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been
embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Pride is a powerful thing. Flipping burgers should be beneath _anyone's_
dignity. They should be so mad at having to flip burgers that they will do
anything, go to great lengths so that they don't have to anymore. Maybe they
will even invent an automated way to flip burgers :) \--- Rule No. 6: It's not
your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip
side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent
proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't
whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Again I feel bad for this guy, somewhere along the way he lost his support
network and grew a highly jaded skin. Parents are there to catch you when you
fall, if your 5, 10, or 50. The only job a parent has is to see the success
and continuation of their offspring. People who don't feel this way shouldn't
be parents in the first place. Great parents however will never need to do
this though because children destined for happy lives and great things take
pride in personal ability, accomplishment, and independence. Being an adult
means that you don't need to ask for help very often but you arn't afraid to
when you do. It's a very hard line to walk and that's the lesson children
often miss. \--- Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as
boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your
room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way,
before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your
parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

If you resent your children it unlikely you're going to be a good parent. Now
I feel bad for this guy and his kids. \--- Rule No. 8: Your school may have
done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give
you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have
been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be
hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the
slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2
and Rule No. 4)

A few things matter in life. Winning and losing are not part of that set.
Being able to accomplish your goals is important, but if you're playing a game
where the only way for you to win is for someone else to lose ... YOU'RE
PLAYING A GAME, and whatever it is doesn't really matter. Life is not a zero
sum game. \--- Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't
get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day.
For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on
and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your
self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-
realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

I can't begin to articulate how saddening this mindset makes me, and I'm glad
I don't suffer from it. Every day is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and
the thing holding you back from doing so ... that's probably fear. Look hard
at whatever you think it is, it' probably fear masquerading as knowledge. \---
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your
problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In
real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your
friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Sure, but how about "Don't watch T.V." That's a rule I think we could all live
with. \--- Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We
all could.

Teh lolz. \--- 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.

First part I'm all for, but the second? I'm terribly vanilla, but if you
really want purple hair and piercings, go for it! That stuff grows back. In
the spirit of the rule lets go with "Tatoos are probably a bad idea." Why?
Because they last and last and last, and the impulse that made you get it will
fade. On the other hand, if you consider your body a canvas, remember you only
get one and having a master plan before you start couldn't hurt. \--- 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.

Actually is is terribly romantic, it is fantastic, it is totally selfish. Once
you're dead, that's it. The rest of us have to go on living, so have a care
for us ok? \--- 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.

And to all the different ones, "It gets better." Being an adult is a hell of a
lot more fun for us than being a kid ever was.

------
rmah
Haha, old but a great post. I agree with most of the entries 110%!

~~~
ramblex
Evidently percentages aren't something that kids learn in school either :)

