Positivity

 

I am a positive person. I take people at their word, don't require anyone to earn my respect, and hope for the best. Living in the covid era has been an exhausting trial for many people, but I've always tried to ride the wave of no matter the situation, turbulence is to be expected and can be weathered. When our washing machine was overloaded and flooded our laundry room, I didn't freak out and get angry, I just started cleaning up. When our daughter was born and I had to juggle the new fog of parenting, I just put one hand in front of the other to change diapers, walk my daughter to sleep, and try to relish the fact that today's lows are tomorrows funny memories. Today, when I opened the fridge with a little too much gusto and a take home container of ranch went flying and exploded on the near by carpet I just ran, got some paper towels, and hopped too. Keeping cool and positive is state I try to maintain, even when life throws a deadly virus into your orbit.

Skipping over the highs and lows of the pandemic, I feel the need to share my reaction to Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso. If you don't know the basics, the show is about an overly optimistic American football coach who is hired by a British football (soccer) club to coach the team even though he knows literally nothing about the sport. The show has been showered with praise, awards, and has a very loyal fanbase. I love it, but not because it's a good story and makes me laugh and cry multiple times in a given episode. I love it because it is aspirational and guides the audience to expect the characters to do the right thing, embrace goodwill, and simply be positive.

When confronted with overt negativity I try to take an outside view of the person or thing that is raging in front of me. I refuse to accept people or organizations are simply evil, selfish and opportunistic. Bad people are out there but evil means you are doing something to spite someone else and want bad fortune to befall them. 

There are so many times in Ted Lasso where Ted acts as a slow pitch deus ex machina. He's like the walking embodiment of Full House, refusing to be pulled into the fray. After watching both of the available seasons (in five days...) I realized I can't think of another show that is about the power of positivity and optimism. That makes me sad, but also so happy that Ted Lasso is powering through the antihero, dark vibe, cynical entertainment world to do something different. I don't want to live in a state of fear, anger, dourness, or animosity. 

Now I am an optimist, but I am also a very centered and pragmatic person. Ted Lasso is fiction and the ocean of content next to it is overwhelmingly rooted in depicting "real." Well I'd say it doesn't matter if Ted Lasso is a made up depiction of heightened reality. In my eyes it is a depiction of "why not?" Shouldn't we want our leaders and father figures to be forthright, helpful, empathic, and motivated to do good? That's the point of Ted Lasso. Sure there's soccer, british cursing, and a wonderful moustache but the take away is be good and do good.

Ted Lasso makes me take stock of what I create and the vibe it projects. I'd like to try and emulate that vibe. Create the tone that promotes goodness, not just entertain and enrapture. Thank you Jason Sudeikis. Maybe we can turn this tide of dread and disgust, but as you elegantly have put it; it will have be done bird by bird.