Bill Gates' Eleven Tips To Youth

Admitting that politically correct 'teachings' can create a lot of feel good euphoria, Gates explained how a whole generation of kids with no concept of reality has been created by them. Such teachings set them up for failure in the real world.

Recently, Gates addressed American students in a high school function. None of the 11 tips he gave them was ‘politically correct’. While admitting that politically correct ‘teachings’ can create quite a lot of feel good euphoria, he explained how a whole generation of kids with no concept of reality has been created by such teachings. Such teachings set them up for failure in the real world. Just as Gates has changed the lives of more Indians for the better than Americans, his tips to American school kids are even more appropriate to Indian youth set to come out of colleges. The tips are re-ordered below and elaborated in the Indian context.

1) “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 times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.” (Indian lawmakers have restrained schools from detaining even the worst-performing students in a class. While there are no ‘repeaters’ till Standard X, the learned education minister is keen to do away with board exam in Class X too, throughout India to rescue children from undue pressure!).

2)“The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.” (‘Enlightened’ Indians are urged to feel good that their country will be a 'developed country' after 2020! Politically correct thinking is to brag about being an emerging nuke-armed superpower lording over the region. The world won’t respect the tribe when in reality, the country has more malnourished miserable children than all other countries put together).

3)“Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.” (Dhirubhai Ambani did not flip burgers while pursuing studies and had to slog whole time as a petrol pump attendant while learning tricks of the trade. He went on to find the largest and the most efficient refinery in the world. Narendra Modi, arguably the most respected voice in Bhartiya Janata Party worked as an errand boy at a makeshift ‘kitli’ (tea stall) at the BJP HQ in Ahmedabad for completing his education. APJ Abdul Kalam used to trod to the nearest non-descript railway station as a kid in early mornings. Before going to school, Kalam had to collect on behalf of his father who ran a newspaper agency, bundles flipped by the driver of a passing train that did not stop at the station.)

4)“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!” (Remember this when politically correct thinkers campaign for all sorts of community festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Pateti, Mahavir Jayanti, Ganesh-whatever, Easter, Eid, etc to be declared as national holidays).

5)“Be nice to nerds. Chances are that you will end up working for one!”

6)“If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.”

7)“If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.” (You are not a fashionable parent if you do not get outraged, outwardly, at the weight of your kids schoolbag and the ‘inhuman’ behaviour of the teacher who demands performance. But there is no place for non-performers!)

8)“Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.”

9)“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.”

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