I grew up a fairly angry child. A lot of things out of my control were thrown at me and instead of making the best of it, I decided it would be easier to be miserable and make those around me miserable.
Spoiler alert: that was a terrible idea.
It is so cliché to say, "your attitude can change your situation" but clichés are based off of truth. By taking a negative circumstance and looking for the positives, or spinning it into something positive, the mood shifts and makes the whole ordeal more tolerable. The person who taught me that was one Ms. Leslie Knope, deputy director of the parks department.
At the beginning of my endeavor into the great show that is Parks and Recreation I truly hated Leslie Knope, she was too peppy and fairly childish, but as I continued on I realized I hated her not as much for those reasons but because she was my antithesis. Leslie Knope was everything that I wasn't and, though I didn't want to admit it, she had the outlook and the attitude I had always wished I had. Being that optimistic and that positive just seemed so impossible and though consciously I knew it would be better to think that way, I couldn't do it.
As I went through the series and saw how her ability to spin and her gift of seeing good in everything and everyone so greatly impacted the people around her, I knew I wanted to be her. I wanted to find the good, I wanted to be so happy I called my best friend a, "beautiful, naive, sophisticated new born baby", or "beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox". Her dedication to her job, her friends and her breakfast foods is what made people love her and want to be around her and I wanted to help better the lives of the people I cared about in the same way that Leslie did.
I kept the mantra, "Be the Leslie Knope of whatever you do" in my mind at all times (even putting the sticker on my computer) and I made the decision to be positive. There was no use in being pessimistic, as the canvas from Home Goods on my wall says, "it wouldn't work anyway".
The deputy director of the parks department helped me become an over all better person and I give much thank to you, Leslie Knope.
