Leslie Knope said, “Find your team.” The thing is, as my wife pointed out, Leslie kinda made her team.

If you don’t know who Leslie Knope is, go watch Parks and Recreation.

Did you do it? Ok, probably not yet. But you should. It’s worth it. But if you didn’t, Parks and Recreation is about the staff of a small town parks and recreation department. Well, mostly it’s about Leslie Knope – an overbearing, obnoxious optimist – and how she helps a group of people with a bunch of really different personalities do great things, despite the fact that they are just the staff of a small town parks and recreation department.

She said, “So find your team. Get to work. Whatever that work is that you find worth doing. Do it, and find some people to love who’ll do it with you.” Leslie found people she loved. They didn’t always love her but she loved them. She dragged them kicking and screaming into the work she loved. And in the end, they became more than they had been. They did great things.

Leslie was a bit quixotic. She tilted at windmills, seeing giants that could be toppled where others just saw features of the landscape to work around. Like Don Quixote seeing the lady in a prostitute and the squire in a humble neighbor, she saw greatness in the people around her, even though they often didn’t see it in themselves. Because she saw that greatness, believed in that greatness, and worked as if it was there, those people became great.

To dream the impossible dream may sound like trite BS. Or it might be what makes life worth living.