I like Forbes. I do. But one of two things must be true: (1) Children are its new target readership. (2) It’s sucking wind for content.
Case in point: Forbes published this article from a dude with a Ph.D. in clinical and industrial-organizational psychology: “8 Unrealistic Expectations That Will Ruin You“. I’m guessing it’s for lack of demand that no institution of higher learning offers a Ph.D. in common sense. And we might presume Forbes is targeting emotional or intellectual age, rather than chronological age. But we still have to wonder: Does anyone who’s ever left the house need to be told the things in the article?
I wasn’t considered a particularly precocious child. But I knew all eight of those expectations were unrealistic after my first day of Kindergarten. John Heck took my blocks. Miss Heike didn’t give me a cookie for showing up. Penny Holuba hated me. No one agreed with me. Kids looked at me as if I were speaking Swahili. I knew I was going to fail when I flunked Nap. Nothing made me happy. And I couldn’t convince Penny Holuba to like me.
The bad news is the rest of my life has been a consistent affirmation of everything I learned that day. The good news is I’m rarely disappointed.
But I guess there must be people who didn’t find Kindergarten quite as instructive as I did. So, for those folks, whomever they are, I offer eight more unrealistic expectations that might ruin you — or at least your day — if you’re not careful:
- Your parachute will open, even if you don’t pull the ripcord.
- Dynamite always blows down.
- You’re the one person on the planet who’ll be unaffected by chugging a can of Drano.
- Anyone can ski jump.
- You can hold a lightning rod over your head as long as you’re wearing rubber soles.
- That shark probably ate already.
- A diet high in riboflavin will repel piranhas.
- You can spend your way out of debt.
I don’t mean to be fatalistic about any of this. But John Heck never gave back my blocks. And Penny Holuba still hates me.
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Image by Alex_Fotos, courtesy of pixabay.com.