You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice¹ president with a car phone, until you earn both.
高中刚毕业你不会一年挣4万美元。你不会成为一个公司的副总裁，并拥有一部汽车电话，直到你将此职位和汽车电话都挣到手。

Life is not fair, get used to it.
生活是不公平的；要去适应它。

The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
这世界并不会在意你的自尊。这世界指望你在自我感觉良好之前先要有所成就。

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure².
如果你认为你的老师严厉，等你有了老板再这样想。老板可是没有任期限制的。

Flipping³ burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
烙牛肉饼并不有损你的尊严。你的祖父母对烙牛肉饼可有不同的定义；他们称它为机遇。

If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine⁴ about our mistakes, learn from them.

如果你陷入困境，那不是你父母的过错，所以不要尖声抱怨我们的错误，要从中吸取教训。

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 are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites⁵ of your parents' generation, try "delousing" the closet in your own room.
在你出生之前，你的父母并非像他们现在这样乏味。他们变成今天这个样子是因为这些年来他们一直在为你付账单，给你洗衣服，听你大谈你是如何的酷。所以，如果你想消灭你父母那一辈中的“寄生虫”来拯救雨林的话，还是先去清除你房间衣柜里的虫子吧。

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
电视并不是真实的生活。在现实生活中人们不得不离开咖啡店去工作。

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 times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
你的学校也许已经不再分优等生和劣等生，但生活却仍在作出类似区分。在某些学校已经废除不及格分；只要你想找到正确答案，学校就会给你无数的机会。这和现实生活中的任何事情没有一点相似之处。

Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping⁶ you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
生活不分学期。你并没有暑假可以休息，也没有几位雇主乐于帮你发现自我。自己找时间做吧。