Friends of Dave #440: 🐣 why people flourish 📈
Members of the Class of 2025....
Friends: as I have done from time to time over the years in late May or early June, here is another rendition of a commencement address to recent graduates. Enjoy!.
Congratulations, graduates!
You clawed your way through four years of glitchy Zoom classes, AI “helpers” that mostly just made things worse, and adults who still think “going viral” means a trip to the nurse’s office.
Your prize? Nope, not Beyoncé beaming in via hologram. You’re stuck with me — a middle-aged Gen-X dad who maintains coffee should ALWAYS be served hot, thinks TikTok dancing is a total waste of time and is convinced that Millennials, not AI, are who will bring on the ultimate downfall of humanity.
Buckle up. I have a few lessons I have learned along the way about how to build a strong foundation for the long, prosperous journey ahead….
Lesson 1: The Universe Owes You Nothing —So Start with “Thanks”
Look, life is about as fair as Netflix canceling your favorite show right after a cliffhanger — again.
The sooner you tattoo that on your brain, the easier it’ll be to stay calm when the social media algorithm buries your viral masterpiece under yet another AI generated baby podcaster video….because apparently, that’s content now.
Here’s the hack nobody puts as the leading skill on their LinkedIn bio: gratitude.
It’s the emotional equivalent of premium gas — you run cleaner, longer, and with fewer backfires.
The key, like with anything, is to start small.
Say “thanks” to the barista who spells your name with three extra vowels and the confidence of someone who’s never met a vowel they didn’t like.
Thank your roommate for not finishing the cereal and leaving exactly one sad flake floating in existential despair.
Thank the group project partner who ghosted you until 11:57 p.m., only to swoop in with a single PowerPoint slide labeled “Insert stuff here.”
Hell, thank your school Wi-Fi for working just long enough to submit your paper before collapsing like an old, 2003 Dell laptop.
Gratitude forces you to notice that, while adulting is hard, 98% of life isn’t on fire—and that mental habit builds the foundation for everything else you’re about to stack on top.
Lesson 2: Resilience Is Just Gratitude with Calluses
There are very few guarantees in life, but here is one you can take to the bank: bad stuff will happen.
Your dream job opportunity might ghost you by simply changing the application status to “nope.” You may get hot coffee when you mobile ordered iced. A fly may decide to land in your chardonnay.
When life flicks you in the forehead, reflexively hunt for something…anything….to appreciate.
Did you learn a skill while hustling side gigs? Did you at least get a funny story for future brunch? Gratitude turns every plot twist into bonus content.
Remember in March when the Oscars went full Broadway and Wicked lost out to Emilia Pérez, then Elton John and Chappell Roan belted “Pink Pony Club” at the after-party? People online either swooned or rage-tweeted. The calmest take came from those outliers who said, “Hey, musicals on live TV? Cool. More popcorn?”
That vibe, finding the upside while the comment section detonates, is resilience in action.
Lesson 3: Your “Personal Brand” Is Just Gratitude Wearing Sunglasses and Pretending It Invented Humility
Let’s have a little heart-to-heart about this whole “personal brand” obsession. Because somewhere between Instagram Stories, crying Tik-Toks about unfair managers and Threads debates no one asked for, we’ve mistaken branding for being a real human.
You’ve been told authenticity means posting a “raw and vulnerable” selfie at 7:00 a.m. with bedhead, an emotional caption, and strategically placed latte art. SPOILER ALERT: that's not authenticity — that’s marketing….and people see right through it.
True authenticity, the kind that actually gets you respect outside your carefully curated echo chamber, is built on something way less glamorous: gratitude.
That’s right. All those so-called wins in your life? You didn’t get there alone. Even the ring light you used for your "big announcement" video was probably a hand-me-down from someone who believed in your potential — or at least didn’t want to see your pixelated forehead again on Zoom.
Think back. That all-nighter you survived? You only made it through because your roommate brought you caffeine and moral support (or at least didn't report the screaming). The group project that miraculously passed? Yeah, someone other than you carried that thing like a Sherpa with three majors. Even your teachers, some of whom still think “PDF” stands for “Please Don’t Fail,” probably gave you at least one mercy extension after you sent that suspiciously vague “family emergency” email.
Your parents? They literally had you 💩 and 🤮 on them…more than once….cleaned you and them up afterward, and as a teenager you flipped them off and stormed away telling them they sucked. They still hugged you before you went to bed.
All of those people made invisible deposits into your karmic account, and the interest on that gratitude will keep your ego in check when success finally Venmos you back with the note: “You up?”
Now let’s talk about FOMO, because it’s the passive-aggressive roommate of gratitude. While you’re busy building your brand, someone else will get hired at NASA, sell an NFT game to Microsoft, or end up married to Zendaya and own a sustainable mushroom farm in Oregon. That’s just how the universe works.
Meanwhile, you’ll be wondering why your last post about mental health and iced coffee only got 23 likes.
Breathe. This is not a zero sum game. Someone else’s good fortune isn’t more good than yours.
The truth? Gratitude is the mental pop-up blocker that lets you say, “Good for them,” and actually mean it.
Because real confidence isn’t found in follower counts, it’s in being able to clap for someone else’s success without quietly fantasizing about them tripping over a microphone cord on live TV.
Gratitude is that foundation. Make sure you’re also sending thank-you texts, shouting out the people who got you there, and remembering that humility looks way cooler than hustle culture burnout.
Lesson 4: Gratitude Beats the Algorithm
Let’s face it: social media isn’t your friend — it’s a dopamine-driven machine designed to keep you scrolling past 2am when you really went to bed “early” at 11pm.
Outrage sells ads better than cat videos, so your feeds are basically a nonstop circus of “What did this person say NOW?” and “Why is everyone mad at the Kardashians again?”
But here’s something they didn’t teach you in class: you can totally beat that algorithm.
No, not by yelling louder or posting another viral rant. Instead, if you can’t ignore social media altogether, flood your timeline with gratitude. Yes, like that annoying hippie cousin, but with way more sarcasm and fewer tie-dye shirts.
The algorithm notices when you watch the kind of stuff that is silly, corny or just outright positive. It’s like a digital law of attraction but without the overpriced crystals and incense. Post more happy little moments, and suddenly your feed isn’t just a dumpster fire of hot takes and political rants—it’s a curated museum of “Hey, life’s kinda okay sometimes.”
Trust me, this isn’t just some feel-good pep talk. This is survival strategy for your sanity. Because if you keep feeding the beast with rage and doom, it’ll just keep serving you more of the same.
Embrace gratitude like a favorite shirt. Your brain and your timeline will thank you.
Lesson 5: Pass It On—Because Gratitude Scales
Your shiny new degree is a backstage pass to rooms you couldn’t enter five minutes ago.
Drag someone in with you.
Mentor a younger person….or better yet, mentor an older person.
Tip 25% even when the service is mid.
Find ways to always be a coach or a caregiver to someone or something.
Every time you pay gratitude forward, you reinforce a network where people have each other’s backs. You soon come to understand that this network is the ultimate life cheat code.
In Conclusion…
Class of 2025, you’re about to step out into a world that updates faster than a Taylor Swift surprise album drop. You’ll chase dreams, break things, fix some of them, and occasionally wonder if you left the stove on.
Through it all, anchor yourself with gratitude. It’s free, portable, immune to inflation, and it makes you bearable at parties.
Now, go forth, give them hell, but lead with a heartfelt “thank you” first. The universe may not owe you anything, but trust me, it tips well when you’re grateful.
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
How long you live depends a lot on where you’re born. This phenomenon is mapped out here, which uses 2025 life expectancy at birth projections from the UN World Population Prospects published last year.
Life expectancy at birth measures the average number of years that a newborn could expect to live, if they were subject to the age-specific mortality rates of a given period.
What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. More recently, researchers have focused on the idea of flourishing, not simply as happiness or success, but as a multidimensional state of well-being that involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.
It’s been almost two years since the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon brought summer movies back in a big way — and the box office has yet to reach those same heights. But that could change in the summer of 2025, when multiplexes will be filled with crowd-pleasing wannabe blockbusters that promise new takes on old properties (and maybe some movies that will land on our “best movies of 2025” list too).