Let’s talk about the beautiful goddess of a human that is Pamela Morgan Beesly. If you are reading this and you have not watched The Office, stop immediately, get on Netflix, and start watching it now. If you do not have Netflix, contact me and I will give you mine. This is THAT important people.

(Side note: I do not own any of the rights to the images, characters, or quotes used in this post and no copyright infringement is intended.  This post is simply one small ode to a perfect character.)

If you are to this point and are still unfamiliar with The Office, A- you have homework to do and should probably stop reading because SPOILERS, and B-  some back story: The Office is the perfect workplace sitcom that follows the lives of the staff of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. The show takes all of the people you know and love (or hate) from your own office life, cranks their personalities up to 20, and throws them all together. This archetypal staff is led by the utterly ridiculous and incredibly endearing Michael Scott who’s need to be liked gets him, and his employees, into some disastrous and hilarious situations. The topic of this post, Pamela Morgan Beesly, or Pam, is the receptionist/Michael’s assistant at Dunder Mifflin.

When discussing The Office, you will always hear people talk about how much they love Jim, and for good freaking reason-the man is perfect, but that’s the thing: Jim is already basically perfect. Yes, he goes through his own battles throughout the show’s almost 10 years, but Pam’s story is one that everyone, especially, young women need to see.

We first encounter Pam in her early/mid-twenties, engaged to a man that she has dated since high school, content to let life pass her by. She’s a gifted artist that does not pursue her skills and lets other people dictate her life because she is too afraid to take a risk and stand up for herself. This is a struggle that I see a lot of young women facing, including myself. Young women are told to be pretty and silent, to dream big, but think practically, and to do be unique while not straying from the cultural norm. Pam is no exception. Any time she branches out and tries to do something different, like art school, she is talked out of it by very key players in her life (this is also the reason we all love Jim so much because he is the ONLY one that tells her to go for her dreams).

It takes Pam three years on the show and countless years before that to realize that her life is not all that it could be. She ends up breaking off her engagement to Roy after Jim leaves for Stamford and she realizes, through Jim’s absence, what love actually feels like.

This is my favorite part of Pam’s development because it is when she is really figuring out her life for herself and ON HER OWN. We see this wonderful and talented young woman start to make decisions and voice her own opinions. We relish in her little triumphs and exalt her slow, but steady climb to self-realization.

The best part about this phase of her life: the famous fire walk. If you don’t know what I am talking about, go watch Season 3, Episode 22: “Beach Games”. Long story short, Pam is the only one from the office brave enough to walk across burning coals. After she has a private moment of victory and “holy crap, I just did that!!”, she runs to everyone and delivers the following speech (I can’t bring myself to paraphrase it, so do yourself a favor and read the whole thing):

“Hey! I wanna say something. I’ve been trying to be more honest lately, and I just wanna say a few things. I did the coal walk! Just, I did it. Michael, you couldn’t even do that. Maybe I should be your boss. Wow I feel really good right now. [pause] Why didn’t any of you come to my art show? I invited all of you. That really sucked. It’s like sometimes some of you act like I don’t even exist. Jim, I called off my wedding because of you. And now we’re not even friends. And things are just like weird between us. And that sucks. And I miss you. You were my best friend before you went to Stamford. And I really miss you. I shouldn’t have been with Roy, and there were a lot of reasons to call of my wedding. But the truth is, I didn’t care about any of those reasons until I met you. And now you’re with someone else. And that’s fine. It’s, whatever, it’s not what I’m- I’m not- Okay my feet really hurt. The thing that I’m just trying to say to you Jim, and to everyone else in the circle, I guess, is that I miss having fun with you. Just you, not everyone in the circle. Okay. I am gonna go walk in the water now. Yep. It’s a good day. “

CAN YOU IMAGINE STANDING IN FRONT OF EVERYONE YOU WORK WITH AND SAYING THIS TO THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE WHILE HE SITS NEXT TO HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND!?!?!?!? I mean, WHAT!! Not only does she give this wonderful and empowering speech, but she doesn’t back-peddle in the cold light of day.

I don’t know about you guys, but whenever I say anything even remotely serious, I have a tendency to pull back what I said and make it less important so I don’t make people mad. But Pamela Morgan Beesly will not be deterred! People in the office start to poke fun at her at work and Jim’s new girlfriend, Karen, gets all weird (rightfully so, I mean the girl did just openly admit that she is in love with her boyfriend), but Pam stands up for what she said. She knows it may have been awkward for some people, but she also knows that she needed to say it.

CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING THOSE CAJONES! Whenever I watch this episode, I inevitably think back on all of the times in my life when I needed to have a “coal walk” moment with someone, but I was not brave enough to be so purely honest with that person. I was scared I would make him/her mad and that I would lose a friend. I wish I could jump in that episode (or The Wizard of Oz for that matter) and get my courage, but Pam’s wonderfully flawed story always inspires me to strive for that level of badass-ery in my daily life.

Pam goes through so many more amazing moments along her journey on The Office, but through it all, she works to be unapologetically Pam.

I could clearly go on for days about my love of this character (and maybe I will….), but for now I will leave you with a piece of Pam’s last monologue on the show:

“It would just…just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to herself ‘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’.”