What The Office Teaches Us About Life
The Office is one of my all time favorite shows, and it solidified itself as an influential piece of entertainment for Gen Z. I started watching The Office when I was in 7th grade, and during that time it was hugely popular with people my age.
At first glance, The Office is a comedy. It’s got funny jokes and crazy characters. Beneath that, though, are lessons and stories that are extremely deep and valuable. I truly believe it represents some of the best values and life lessons out of any piece of entertainment that has been popular amongst Gen Z.
The Beauty in Normalcy
The Office is a series about really normal, ordinary people. Mosts of the characters aren’t especially talented or interesting, and they are all deeply flawed. Despite that, viewers fall in love with each and every character and appreciate all their flaws and ordinary attributes.
When we watch The Office, we fall in love with the love story of Jim and Pam, two really normal people who have a love story extraordinary enough to entertain us. We develop a love for weird, slightly annoying, and flawed characters like Dwight Schrute and Michael Scott.
The characters of The Office show us that there is beauty in every person. Most people are pretty ordinary at first glance and everybody has flaws. Yet, there is beauty in the life, personality, flaws, and strangeness of every person on the planet.
Similarly to beauty in normal people, The Office shows us the beauty in normal life. I mean, The Office follows a paper company, which does seem like the most average, boring job ever. And yet, there is so much beauty in the company and the lives the employees live. There are great loves, great successes, and great families within a normal existence and a normal environment.
The fact that there was enough story surrounding the Dunder Mifflin company and employees for a show as beloved as The Office shows us that there is an abundance of life and beauty in every place and every person.
"I thought it was weird...when you picked is to make a documentary. But, all in all, I think an ordinary paper company like Dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kinda the point?"
Pam Beesley-Halpert, The Office Series Finale
Making The Most of Your Situations
Another lesson we can learn from The Office is the idea that no matter who you are or where you are in life, you can make the most out of any situation we are in.
Everybody struggles with insecurity, and it’s easy to feel like you aren’t good enough or that you have too many flaws. We all experience times where we feel like we are at a dead end in life. Maybe you feel stuck in your hometown or are bored with school or feel like you can’t get out of a job you don’t like. But the truth is, you can always make the best out of whatever situation you are in, just like characters from The Office do throughout the series.
Think about Jim Halpert, who ended up with his dream job working in sports marketing after years at a job he hated but still made the best out of. Even Michael, who struggled with deep insecurities, ended up with his dream of having a family. All of the characters felt hopeless at times, but they all ended up making the best out of their situations.
So, as you can see, The Office shows us the beauty in normalcy and it also teaches us a lesson about making the most of whatever situation you find yourself in. And, sure, some may say that The Office is just an unrealistic TV series, but I truly believe that viewing life in this way is the best way to live, even if things don’t always turn out as perfect as a in a TV series.
Written by Peyton Price - Entertainment Values
