One normally doesn’t find fast food to be synonymous with philosophy, or the source of creative inspiration, but a recent visit to a local Jimmy John’s sub shop was just that.
The shop was decorated with signs scattered along the walls, positioned in just about every direction. Some were as poignant as they were humorous. My personal favorite was:
I had to admit that it was pretty damn funny- and pretty damn true, at least from my personal point of view; and as wise old Obi-Wan Kenobi explained, “You’ll find that many of the truths we cling to in life depend greatly on our point of view.”
But, I digress…
One of the signs caught my eye not just because it was directly above my table, but because of the misappropriations connected with it. Well, that, and it was simply a perfectly logical set of rules to live by, so I took a few pictures of it for later reference.
I’m sure you’ve seen the list “Some Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School” forwarded in countless emails, posted on social networking walls, and shared through various other mediums since the year 2000. If not, it goes something like this:
Rule #1: Life’s not fair- get used to it.
Rule #2: The real world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
Rule #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.
Rule #4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until 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: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible.
Rule #7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way by paying your bills, cleaning up your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. Before you save the rainforest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Rule #8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades and class valedictorians have been scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings get hurt; and effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
Rule #9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even spring break. You’re expected to show up every day for eight hours; and you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. Very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself.
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. You may end up working for them.
That last rule is the main reason the list has been credited over the years to either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. The heading of the version hanging in Jimmy John’s perpetuates this myth by proclaiming that it was “offered to high school students by the founder of a ridiculously successful software company.” The most popular story suggests that it was from a commencement speech given by Gates at a California high school in 2002. However, he never delivered those words at the high school, nor anywhere else.
It’s even been linked to Kurt Vonnegut as “a college graduation speech.” An amusing side note regarding Vonnegut is that the infamous “Sunscreen” speech has also been laid upon the famed writer’s doorstep.
Well, dear readers, the truth is that it is the work of Charles Sykes, the author of Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can’t Read, Write, or Add. That book laid the foundation for the list, as did its publication in several newspapers since then, before becoming 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education, which was published in 2007.
The point of all this is which should matter more: the true origins of the list, or the mere fact that it exists? Clichés may well be overused expressions or ideas, but truth is still truth.
Have you ever heard a funny joke only to repeat it countless times, reveling in the laughs (or jeers, depending on the joke) of your audience? Does anyone really care who penned it?
Knowledge is just as important to life as humor. The goal is to share it.
I went into that sub shop expecting only to feed my hungry stomach; I had no idea that I’d also be feeding my mind. Not too bad for a seemingly mundane summer day.
Sure, it’s nice to see rules to live by neatly spelled out for us, but the best lessons come when we least expect them, and in forms that are difficult to recognize while they’re happening. I don’t know what lessons will come my way tomorrow, so I go on living…and learning.
©2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/
Deep Forest Productions
