Eleven Rules Students should know that are not taught in High School

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it.

Rule 2: The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades, and they will give you as many chances as you want to get the right answer. In the real world you CAN fail, and for many things you only get one chance to get it right without incurring a penalty.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He will not care if you complain to your parents and friends about him, and he will not be interested in excuses to justify not doing your work or not following instructions. The first sign of human intelligence is the ability to follow simple instructions. Learn to act intelligently.

Rule 5: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. You have to do that on your own time. When you come to work, you have to work.

Rule 6: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.

Rule 7: You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school, and probably not right out of college. You won’t be a corporate vice-president; you will probably not make the NBA, the NFL, be a model or marry Morris Chestnut. To be successful, you have to work hard, put your time in and invest the money you receive wisely.

Rule 8: 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, taking care of you and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So, before you save the world from the errors of your parents’ generation, try cleaning the closet in your own bedroom.

Rule 9: If you decide to have sex before marriage, do drugs, or otherwise mess up you life, it is NOT your parents’ fault, it is not your girlfriend or boyfriend’s fault, it is not your friends’ fault, it is YOUR fault. Don’t whine about your mistakes; learn from your mistakes and stop making mistakes.

Rule 10: Television is not real life. Everything does not always work out in the end.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Pastor Darryl Curtis
Family Life Baptist Church