My other favorite thing about our birthday is that we are co-hosting this event with our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico. This is the first time in FIFA World Cup history that three nations are officially co-hosting the event. That is an excellent story to tell: We hosted 48 national teams to play 104 matches across 16 cities, alongside our friends. Remember when I wrote about the New York Giants? Well, the grand final of the World Cup will be held at MetLife Stadium, where my beloved Giants play. This means the final night of the sleepover will be in a stadium I have been to many times. I am positive the fans who attend will be commenting that it is not the heat, but the humidity, that gets you in the middle of a Northeast summer.

People from around the world will head home with ranch dressing, Trader Joe’s tote bags, and stories from the United States that are uniquely their own, not ones their media told them. Like the story out of Boston, where Scotland fans literally drank all the beer. Or out of Houston, where the Dutch marched by the thousands to support their team. Or how the Germans love Waffle House, or the English people who are amazed at our “petrol stations.” All of these are wonderful demonstrations of fun. The way we are competing against each other and celebrating together is a beautiful display of sportsmanship.

And, perhaps most importantly, our guests are telling a story of how amazing our nation is and how friendly our people are. These stories matter. The stories we tell ourselves and our friends when we get home matter. They are not just entertainment; they serve a critical civic function by shaping the reality we inhabit. The reality that people are finding in our country is that we love food, we have beautiful stadiums (yes, they are better than England’s), and that, generally, the people you run into in America are helpful, whether it’s at Target or a fast-food chain.

Maybe we are at our best on our birthday, having all of our friends over for a sleepover. I hope some of those large slices of cake I am seeing on my social media feeds are in honor of the 250th, and I love that the reality we are creating is a fun one. These are the ways we build connections and a better world. People will go home and say how great we are, and it will have had nothing to do with our leaders, but everything to do with our people. The normal, everyday people you run into at Costco were generally themselves: helpful, kind, and funny.

I cannot stress enough that we have so much more in common than what divides us. Only our leaders win when we are divided, so they feed into dark narratives creating a polarized reality. Only social media influencers win when they make us click on links that enrage us, so they feed us narratives of anger and despair. But the fact of the matter is America is 250 years of hope, friendliness, and people doing the best they can in the moments they find themselves in.

This month, we need to tell America’s origin story as one that included everyday people who were helpful, kind, and funny, which is why they enumerated in the Declaration of Independence our ideals: that all men are created equal and we are committed to those individuals’ life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Our origin story does not mandate what life has to be and it does not dictate what happiness looks like. It lands squarely on liberty as the most important common value. And we have spent 250 years aspiring to make those ideals a shared reality for everyone.

If we tell ourselves that civic narrative, then the reality we inhabit will be full of life, freedom, and happiness. And the reality will include calling it soccer. And maybe, most importantly, that ranch dressing makes everything better.

Leah Murray is a Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.