Dear Graduates: Eat pie for breakfast
Or: Live Well and Prosper (and Hopefully Long, But I Can’t Help You With That.)
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Live Well and Prosper (and Hopefully Long, but I Can’t Help You With That.)
Hello graduating class of 2025! Thank you for having me!
It’s been 35 years since I’ve been to a high school graduation—which was my own—and I can quote essentially the entire speech from memory.
This is a true story! Our valedictorian, the brilliant In-Ho Lee, opened with a sentence or two full of big words as if he was about to launch into a speech exposing the meaning of life.
Instead he stopped, looked over the crowd—just like I’m looking over all of you—and said, “Nah, I can’t do this. Keep it short and sweet so your butts don’t get too numb, right?”
And then he somehow looked all 165 graduates of Clawson (Mich.) High School class of 1990 in the eye at once and said,
“Live long and prosper.”
Then he sat down.
The place erupted.
I promise that is true, and unfortunately for you, I have more to say to you than that.
I call my speech Live Well and Prosper (and Hopefully Long, But I Can’t Help You With That.)
If you aspire to live well, you will hear a lot about the importance of who you surround yourself with, who you listen to, how to discern good advice from bad and all that jazz.
Right now, if I was you, I would think, I’m not listening to a word this guy says. His generation broke America! It’s like listening to someone who drove their Porsche into a brick wall give driving lessons.
But I’m not going to talk about how to run a country, I’m going to talk about how to run a life.
I’m not qualified to talk about that either, but all the good speakers were busy, so here we are.
I hope you’ll do me the honor of taking out your ear buds for just a few minutes. Two hours, tops.
You are the class of ‘25, so I bring you 25 Ways to Live Well and—HA! Just kidding! You’d never listen to 25, and I don't have that many anyway.
You’ll have to settle for 12.5 Ways to Live Well and Prosper (and Hopefully Long, but I Can’t Help You With That.)
Say yes.
I want to tell you a story about my friend Andy. I love him for many reasons, high among them is that he says yes to everything — yes to the Grand Canyon, yes to Yosemite (that's us above), yes to London, and my personal favorite, yes to pie for breakfast. Our lives are better, immeasurably so, because he says yes.
Twice on the morning of long hikes we took together, Andy and I went out to breakfast before hitting the trail, and he ordered pie.
PIE FOR BREAKFAST.
I was jealous both times. Next time, I’m ordering pie. It’s going to be chocolate.
Live a life worthy of looking back on. This involves a healthy stew of work, play and sleep. Live well, not just long.
I struggle with regret. I know it’s often a waste of time to look back and wish I had/had not done this or that, but I still do it. On my better days, I try instead to pre-engineer a lack of regret. I try to imagine future me. What kind of life does he want to look back on? That’s the kind of life I want to lead.
The 18-year-old me—the me who 35 years ago was sitting where you are now, well actually In-Ho’s speech was over by now, so I was probably already at a graduation party—did nothing intentionally to create 28-year-old me. 28-year-old me did marginally better. 48-year-old me started to figure it out, and now 53-year-old me is going to try to fill 60-, 70-, 80-, 90-, 100-year-old me with joy, wisdom, strength and perseverance.
I’m trying to create a me in the future who will look back at the me of now and say, “Thanks, brother. I’m worn out, but it was worth it. Thanks for occasionally having pie for breakfast, especially.”
When I die and give my body back to God so He can make it new again, I want Him to say, what did you do to this thing?
I want to bring to Him a soul full to overflowing because of the relationships and experiences I have had. I want joy to be spilling over the side of my soul bucket like ice cream melting over the side of a cone.
I want that for you, too.
Life will baffle you.
If you work hard, good things will happ—HA! NO! Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but that’s actually a load of BS and always has been.
People will rise and fall, your friends will rise and fall, YOU will rise and fall, and all too often you will find no relationship between what you think should happen and what actually happens. Hacks will be successful. So will lazy people. Geniuses will struggle. So will those who work hard.
And the opposite will be true, too.
I can’t explain any of that, and I’m not going to try.
The best you can do, whether you swing big and hit bombs, bloop a single or stand there and take strike three, is be nice to people. No matter what. Even when they don’t deserve it—especially when they don’t deserve it—because anybody can be nice to people who deserve it.
Take the stairs.
You are never as right as you think you are. Neither am I.
There are a million things I wish I knew when I was your age. No. 1 is that pursuing hard things brings joy. No. 26 is that shrimp and grits should be eaten as frequently as possible.
If you tell me you’re not ready for Hard Thing X I say do it anyway because if you wait until you’re ready you’ll never do it. This I know to be true: Enduring one trial gives me more strength and perseverance when the next one arises.
Life would be boring if it was easy. Please don’t interpret this as an unhealthy obsession with never quitting. “Never quit” is absolutely terrible advice. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about enduring.
Hustle culture is for liars, showoffs and people afraid of stillness. Don’t be any of those.
Maybe the worst bit of popular culture advice is to follow your heart.
If you slavishly follow your heart, it will take you places you regret.
Call your parents, not because they’ll be gone one day, and you’ll wish you had more time with them. Well, not JUST because of that. Call them because they are your parents, and they love you and want to hear from you.
Drive to a state you’ve never been to, find a small-town diner and tell the server, “bring me the most (name of state) item on your menu.” Eat it no matter what it is.
Better yet, do that in a country you’ve never been to.
Don’t chase things.
They break or wear out or become obsolete. Or someone gets something bigger or better than yours.
Chase experiences instead. They get bigger and better with age. C.S. Lewis wrote that we moderns think of an event and the memory of it as separate when we should consider them one thing. “A pleasure is fully grown only when it is remembered. What that makes in me all the days till (I die), that is the real meaning.”
I love the song “Time Stand Still,” by Rush.
The lyricist laments he’s moving so fast he’s not enjoying what’s important in life. The line I want you to know, is “freeze this moment a little bit longer.”
Everyone wants their lives to be full of freezable moments. You will not find them while staring at your phone. Shut that fool thing off, go outside, bring somebody with you, and talk to them.
Also you’re damn right I quoted C.S. Lewis and Rush in back-to-back items.
Everything in moderation.
Except love.
And generosity.
And laughter.
12.5. And especially in having pie for breakfast.