50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School Real World Antidotes to Feel-good Education

Chapter One Rule 1 Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teenager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. The kids got it from their parents, who said it so often they decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When those parents started hearing it from their own kids, they understood Rule 1. Recognizing that life is not fair is a reality check. Hurricanes, tsunamis, plagues, earthquakes, and famines are not fair. Genetics is not fair. The good guys don't always win. It's not fair that some kids are taller, go through puberty early, or can eat gallons of Haagen Dazs without gaining a pound. It's not fair that your average talentless D-list celebrity makes more money than all the math and science teachers in your school combined, and it's not fair when the moronic suck-up gets the good jobbut let's not talk about Congress. "Life is unfair," author Edward Abbey observed. "And it's not fair that life is unfair." You can't control the unfairness of the world. What you can control is the way you react. How you respond will determine what kind of a person you will become. "Everything can be taken from a man," wrote concentration-camp survivor Viktor Frankl, "but . . . the last of the human freedomsto choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."15 Usually, complaints about unfairness have nothing to do with justice, but are simply a reaction to finding out that you have to take responsibility for your life; that you are accountable for your actions; that your choices have consequences; that you have to work for money; that you have to fix something you broke; that you do not get rewards that others earned while you played video games. None of this is unfair. Part of the problem is that so many young people know that they are specialthey've been told so for years. They think that they deserve and are entitled to all sorts of self-actualization and perks that go with feeling so good about themselves. Some were under the impression that the "pursuit of happiness" meant that they were going to end up dating Jessica Alba, winning American Idol, and driving a Porsche. They will have to get used to disappointment. In the meantime, when they don't get everything they expected, it seems . . . so unfair. But failing to get what you wanted is not unfair. Disappointment is a symptom of life, not a sign that the world is ripping you off. World hunger is unfair. AIDS is unfair. Not being able to go to the mall in your skanky T-shirt is not. Your share of the federal debt is unfair; having to turn off 50 Cent so other people in your house can sleep is not. So you have a choice: you can either join the chorus of the permanently whining or recognize that you have to take responsibility for your life and learn to deal with it. Unfortunately, wrapping children in bubble wrap for much of their lives doesn't really prepare them for coping with unfairness. Friends will let you down, good people will get sick, star athletes will blow out their knees, and jerks will win the lottery while a promising physicist at the very beginning of his career comes down with an incurable, crippling disease that destroys his chances for a normal life. Stephen Hawking was not born in a wheelchair.16 The famous physicist wasSykes, Charles J. is the author of '50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School Real World Antidotes to Feel-good Education', published 2007 under ISBN 9780312360382 and ISBN 031236038X.