photo credit: gearlive.com

When I went online today to try to find new episodes of the shows I started to follow recently, I found that apparently the seasons have ended.  I guess that makes sense in retrospect, seeing how dramatic the finale for House was, but I guess I didn’t quite see it for Lie to Me.  Well, once I found out, I tried to figure out when the next seasons start, but I guess they don’t tell you that.  Perhaps people who watch TV just know this, just like any schoolchild can tell you what month they start school.  Unfortunately, that is not knowledge I have had since sometime in middle school, so I’m quite out of the loop.  Thus, in an effort to do an activity that doesn’t require much out of me but is still relatively engaging, I thought I’d check out the latest season of the Amazing Race, which I have read about when Tammy and Victor won as the first Asian-American team.

What struck me was the relationships, the unpredictability, and the rush and intensity of it all.  First and most importantly, any sort of show like this that challenges people to work together under high stress situations tells you a lot about their personalities and relationship.  You watch as they get frustrated with what is going on and some people blame themselves, some people blame others, while some people will blame the situation itself.  And in terms of dealing with that stress, there are those who lash out at their partner, those who get upset with themselves, and those who are impatient or even rude to the locals.  It’s interesting to see the different coping mechanisms that come into play when these people are under stress.  Certainly anyone would start to crack and show their faults and again and again I would see power struggles within the teams, with one partner trying to be more dominant.  Usually this was because of their personal relationship as family or significant others.  It seemed to happen less so with the teams that were coworkers and friends.

photo credit: abovethelaw.com

Observing all of that made me evaluate myself and how I would behave under those circumstances.  I think I’d want to be the dominant one and would in turn be the one dishing out more criticism.  Of course, all of imagination towards how I could compete is in the scenario in which I would go with Panda.  So I’m thinking of the dynamics of our relationship, where I assert myself far more and tend to be more expressive when it comes to sharing my feelings and gripes.  So for me, the hardest thing would be to let go and not always control, but step back and let him do his thing.  The good thing with us is that whenever we get into a disagreement, at the bottom of it we both just want things to go well.  And though we’ll misunderstand each other, we’re both working hard to make things better, in our own ways.  As for how I’d treat the people along the way, I know I’d thank them a lot for their help, but I don’t know if I’d get exasperated when the communication barriers get in the way and delay things.  I can be impatient and demanding, and I may not always be able to be the gracious person I’d like to be.  I’m still working on that.  Don’t shows like this make you reevaluate yourself and your life too?

Secondly, there was the unpredictability of the situation.  Until the moment you step on that mat and hear you’ve been eliminated, there’s nearly always hope.  Time and again teams have yo-yoed from leading to lagging and back again and oftentimes they get back on an even playing field due to travel restrictions.  Plus, you never know exactly what’s going on with all the other teams, so even though you may have a good idea, something unexpected could have gotten in the way.  It’s a huge lesson in hope that I think people need to grasp better.  It’s too often that I see expressions of defeat and despair that end up in glee and joy when they discover that things weren’t as bad as they thought.  At the same time, there are great examples of people who don’t give up and fight to the last bit, no matter how badly off course they get.  That’s the beauty of it – this fighting courage that they get when it comes down to the wire.

Sometimes you just gotta go for it.

Similarly, in life, so many people say negative things about what they think can’t happen only to be proven wrong.  I know I hold myself back a lot because I’m afraid of venturing out to be wrong.  However, everywhere you read, the most common thing that self-made successful people share is a certain level of bravery in taking risks and trying.  This is a topic addressed often in entrepreneurship.  If you want to do something and make something of yourself, you need to go out and attempt all kinds of crazy ideas.  Sure, lots of things will fall flat and you’ll probably get shot down more than you’d ever care for, but then you just have to pick yourselves up and keep going, taking what you’ve learned from each lesson to build on to your repertoire of knowledge.  I want to be like that since I want to be an entrepreneur and I hope shows like this are encouraging more people to act like that as well.

Finally, the intensity of the race and the pace that it goes at (which I’m sure is highly misrepresented in the show) is astonishing sometimes.  The one thing I don’t like about this premise is that people rush through these countries so quickly that they only get a glimpse of what things are like there.  It’s not true travel and tourism in the way that I value it.  So it makes me wonder how much down time they get and if they even have time to go check out some things they may have wanted to.  I think the worst thing would be to finally go to a place you’ve been dreaming of only to run around like maniacs trying to track down the right clues.  For their sake, I hope they get to do some of their own traveling, though it doesn’t really look like it.  I’m sure everyone is so focused on conserving their energy for the race and preparing themselves to take on challenges that they probably aren’t even in the right mindset to truly enjoy the cities they pass through.  It’s the one big downside I see to this great big game.

Me and my bags, dragged all around Europe.

Though granted, I started to get nostalgic for my travels through Europe, like the 5 weeks I spent gallavanting around from Portugal to Hungary, Greece to Sweden, spanning 21 cities.  It was a similar mad rush, with me averaging 1.5 days per city, including travel time.  I had a basic plan that changed a few times depending on when I could catch trains, if I could book hostels, and where I felt like going next.  There’s a beauty and freedom in that kind of travel, where you only really know where you’re going to be in the next two days, but no more.  I had similar frustrations with missing trains, running with a rucksack on my back while dragging a suitcase behind me, and getting lost or stranded.  Additionally, I had to deal with extra fees when my luggage got too heavy for the small, cheap airlines that fly around locally.  The moment I arrived into a city, I’d get a map, go online, and find all the historical landmarks, museums, and other tourist attractions I was interested in visiting.  From there I’d map out my plan of action and go from there.  It was 5 full weeks of banking it from one place to another, trying out all kinds of cuisine I could find, and still managing to enjoy some hotspots and take a breather.  It was quite fun to travel like that and I miss it, though I do plan on going back to see things more in depth in the future and spend some time getting more immersed in the cultural feel.

So all in all, it was a very reflective experience that allowed me to think about my own life.  Which I think we should always be doing.  🙂