Rules for Life - by Charles J. Sykes

I picked this up awhile back:

1. Life is not fair; get used to it.

2. The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world expects you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

3. You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure and he can terminate you.

5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping; they called it opportunity.

6. If you screw up, it's not your parents' fault so don't whine about your mistakes. Learn from them instead.

7. Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way by paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell how idealistic you are. So before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room first.

8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, they'll give you as many chances as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

9. Life is not divided into quarters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

10. Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

More Rules for Life

12. Life is brutal, cruel, unfair and short. Tough.

13. Nothing in nature gives anyone partial credit for an effort that does not achieve results.

14. Unlike Major League Baseball, you are expected to get it right more than 25% of the time.

15. Enlightenment is not instantaneous. This is why all the wise people in your life -- your parents and professors -- are crusty, cynical, old people.

16. The Rules for Life are not posted anywhere and subject to change without notice. You are expected to always know and abide by the rules, even if the rules do not make sense or if you do not know what the current version of the rules are.