The Renegade Writer Blog

Last week, like millions of Americans, I sat down to watch the season finale of one of my favorite reality shows, The Amazing Race. OK, I know a lot of people think reality television is dumb — and a lot of it IS dumb — but I’ll argue that The Amazing Race is an outstanding hour of television. I even encourage my 8-year-old son to watch it … not that he needs much encouraging, because it’s a very exciting, entertaining show.

Anyway, we settled down to watch the final hour on Sunday, prepared to root “our” remaining favorite team to victory. There were three teams left: a young, focused athletic couple who’d been dominating previous legs of the race; two brothers, strong competitors who bickered a lot; and a young married couple who were inconsistent racers.

It quickly became evident that their strengths and weaknesses were going to determine how they placed at the finish line. Whenever the young couple was faced with a daunting challenge, rather than fall apart, they would say things like, “I know I can do this” or “I’m going to get it this time.” The two brothers, on the other hand, started going at each other like pit bulls when counting a million dollars’ worth of poker chips proved to be more difficult than it looked. The time they spent sparring with each other gave the athletic couple, who’d been behind, a chance to focus and pull ahead.

When things were going well for the third team, they were on top of the world. They were actually in first place for the first half of this leg. But when they couldn’t perform an acrobatic-type task at Cirque de Soleil, the wife fell apart and started screaming in frustration at her husband. It was painful to watch, because you could see the substantial amount of energy she spent flailing and screaming at the universe could have been focused toward grabbing the goal. In fact, once she had exhausted her rage and after the other teams had left the building, you could actually see her pull herself together. Once she was able to control her nerves (and her body), the goal became an easy reach. But by then, it was too late. She’d blown the advantage they’d had.

It was a fantastic lesson to show my son Sunday evening, and it hit home for me how your attitude can influence your performance. I admit — there have been times where I’ve found myself raging at the unfairness of it all. Now that I’m older (and wiser, I hope), I realize that cooler heads prevail in the race to a finish line. You make a mistake? You fix it. A project looks too difficult? You break it down and focus on one part at a time until it’s done. Take a wrong turn? You swallow your pride and ask for directions. You don’t waste any energy pointing fingers or stewing over what could have been.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from reality television?

p.s. If you’re interested in watching this last episode of The Amazing Race, you can download it at iTunes.