Tom brokaw the former NBC news anchor and author was addressing the Class of 2005 at Emory University and he said these words:
"You have been
hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called
the real world. What, you may ask, what is that real world all about? What is this
new life? Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2005 at Emory, real life is not
college; real life is not high school. Here is a secret that no one has told
you: Real life is junior high.The world that you’re about to enter is filled
with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of
13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds."
Amen Brother!
More comments in the queue, but now I don't wonder why I'm still delaying the inevitable.
Posted by: Alexander Wilhelmsen | June 06, 2009 at 11:48 PM
I think I left this around a year ago, it's called College. Which was really just an offshoot of high school where kids feel the need to leave their hometowns to "really discover who they are." Or get out from under their parents' roofs and say, "I really miss you family," which is why I moved away in the first place.
What bothers me is that school isn't like how the world works. In school, it's about what you know, not who you know. You can get through with straight intelligence and you are measured by your smarts and results, people be damned (which is probably why anyone intelligent hates group projects... NO ONE likes them very well, unless it's something applicable to the next part of life where you really can't do everything, but everyone knows their role, and if they screw it up, they're toast (also known as almost all of my "skill classes"). We all get through the group projects, no better for having done them, I don't think.
The real world IS about who you know, even if you are incompetent otherwise. Sure there are standards that have to be met, but talent and intelligence doesn't cut it as often. Well, sure there are social skills, but since when were the brightest and best the best at that?
Funny how my junior high, everyone knew everyone, the idiots got detention every week, and for the most part, people got along somehow. Then again, it helps that we were all guys and there was only 100-125 of them, and the top of the class once, was me (it didn't hurt).
Life was simplier before, when I didn't have to deal with so-called real life, but I guess the world is calling, and eventually I hope that life isn't just a 50 year prison sentence, that I actually get to love and enjoy it soon enough.
Maybe someday things will be about what you know and what you know how to do, and not who you know, but hey, such is life, and you just have to deal with the cards that you're dealt.
Posted by: Alexander Wilhelmsen | July 26, 2009 at 12:58 AM