Life Lessons From The Office

The people on The Office are weird.  Only three of them are normal.  Pam, Jim and Darryl.  Okay, and maybe Erin when she's not being so dense.  There is nothing outwardly desirable or interesting about their life.  Their clothes are blah.  Their jobs are blah.  Their lives are one big blah.  They are working 9-5 stiffs at a paper company.  Could there be anything more boring then paper?  In a boring town that nobody would ever really want to visit.  And their office parties are terrible.  

 

People don't want to see that.  They like watching young beautiful people who look like they fell out of a magazine working at glamorous jobs, wearing the latest fashions and doing trendy things.

Except maybe that's not always the case.  Maybe sometimes people get tired of all that high gloss perfection.  Sometimes we just want to see normal people doing ordinary things.  Well, actually there is nothing normal about Dwight and Kevin or about Andy crapping on the hood of a car but still.  In general, they are just regular people.  Like me.  They are flawed.  Goofy.  They are not Forever 21 and they don't always make sense.  They go to work in a colorless office building, sit in the same desk and see the same people every day.  They go to meetings in the conference room.  They joke around.  They meet up for happy hour.  They become friends.  The months turn into years.  I can relate.  I get to do really fun things and I savor my weekends off but by and large because it happens five out of seven days of the week the day to day is about going to work.  It's a normal every day sometimes hum drum life and I liked seeing it on TV In all of it's embarrassingly awkward yet funny yet what the hell just happened glory.  It's way more exciting then what goes on in my office but at the same time so real. And really bizarre.

The Office figured out a way to make ordinary interesting and there is nothing ordinary about how interesting these ordinary characters could be and how they kept people wanting more for 9 seasons.  

When my husband was getting ready to delete the very last episode from our DVR I made him stop.

Why?  Because.  I just wasn't ready to let it go yet.  I have a thing for words.  I love words that make me feel something inside.  The quotes at the end of the show were so moving.  I guess I just wanted to hear them said one more time.  And I didn't want to forget.

It took me so long to do so many important things.  It's just hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy then I could've been.  Be strong.  Trust yourself.  Love yourself.  Conquer your fears.  Just go after what you want and act fast because life just isn't that long.  -Pam

If you film anybody long enough they're going to do something stupid. It's only human natural.  (big goofy smile) -Kevin

When are we all going to be here?  Together again?  -Angela

If you are ever in the area.  You'll have a place to stay.  In my barn.  -Dwight

I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.  Someone should right a song about that. -Andy

You take something ordinary, like a piece of paper.  It's not much. But if you see it in the right way......-Oscar

How did you do it?  How did you capture what it was really like.  How we felt?  How we made each other laugh? And how we got through the day.  How did you do it?  Also, how do cameras work? -Erin

Everyday when I came to work all I wanted to do was leave.  So why in the world does it feel so hard to leave right now? -Darryl

No matter how you get there or where you end up.  Human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home. -Creed

I worked for a paper company all these years and I never wrote anything down.  -Phyllis

Even if I didn't love every minute of it.  Everything I have I owe to this job.  This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job. -Jim

There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things.  Isn't that kind of the point?  -Pam

Who knew those nutty people could be so worldly and wise?  Here's my takeaway from The Office. 

• True love will find a way.  
• There is significant value as human beings in every single one of us.  
• Every person we meet touches our life in some way whether you realize it or not.  
• Don't forget to take delight in the ordinary every day joys of life.  
• Be present and soak it all in.  
• Life is not always perfect or what you expected but it's still yours and it has the potential to be whatever you want it to be so it's up to you to make the best of it.