High school teacher tells graduating students: you’re not special

Goshin said:

Sounds about right.


I've always felt contempt and rolled my eyes at these high-school graduation speeches where some blowhard goes on about "you are the future, the world is in your hands" and all this crap that makes the grads feel like the whole world is holding its breath, waiting for a bunch of 18 year-olds to charge out and take control of everything.


The fact is the world doesn't give a crap about you. 18yo high-school grads are NOT about to go out and take over; they're going to get mostly menial and low-paying entry level jobs (either now or in a few years when they finish college) where the supervisors and managers don't give a flying crap about their drama or what "bold new ideas" some zero-experience wet-behind-the-ears kid has.

For roughly 99.9999% of humanity, you don't change the world; the world changes you, or crushes you if you won't adapt to it or else get out of the way.

Those kind of speeches I think raise the expectations of HS grads to unreasonable levels in some cases. One of the problems we get with hiring fresh-out-of-school youngsters is they often think the world is supposed to be handed to them on a platter, RIGHT NOW, in return for just showing up and barely trying.

It ain't so. You start at the bottom and if you want to even KEEP your job you bust ass every day, even if your paycheck sucks and your boss is a jerk and you hate your job.... because you have to pay those bills. That's reality.

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