When Losing is Winning (Suzanne Forster)

I almost missed this fascinating tidbit on an inside page of the L.A. Times Calendar section the other day. If anyone caught the very first episode of Survivor Borneo, which launched the series several years ago, you might remember a lovely blond sixtyish woman named Sonja Christopher. Sonja was—and is—a breast cancer survivor, a swimmer and a tennis player. Blessed with a vibrant personality, she should have been a strong contender to reach the show’s finals, but sadly, she stumbled in a race and was voted out the first episode.

Sonja was the show’s first loser, so to speak. Its winner was Richard Hatch, a man who seemed to have some nudist inclinations, was a skilled fisherman and an even more skilled manipulator of his fellow contestants. In those days, his take on human nature was decidedly cynical, and he was quite proud of it. I have no idea what his take is today.

As the first winner, he walked off with a million dollars, but the Cinderella story in the Times was not about Hatch’s accomplishments since that first season, it was about Sonja’s—and they have been remarkable.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means that the first Survivor winner is currently in jail and the first Survivor loser has just realized her dream. Years ago, when Sonja was interviewed about what she would do with the million dollars if she won Survivor, she said she saw no reason for a massive makeover of her thrifty lifestyle, but that her church needed a fellowship hall. When she was eliminated from the show, she donated her consolation prize of $2500 to start a building fund for the hall, and in a few years’ time that seed money turned into over a million dollars in donations from others.

Now, Sonja’s church has its fellowship hall, and Richard Hatch is doing time in a federal prison for income tax evasion. Sonja may have been labeled a loser when she left the show, but she didn’t let that crush her altruistic spirit. She had a dream and it lived on, even if some saw her as a failure. She gave what she had to start a building fund, believing that her vision could become reality, and her generosity inspired others. I wonder how many people were inspired by Hatch’s behavior, except possibly future contestants of the show.

It seems the ability to manipulate and connive for short-term gain, even when the gain is a million dollars, doesn’t hold a candle to the ability to sustain a life-long dream, especially when that dream involves helping others.

I’ve always thought Survivor had an interesting sociological aspect to it, but it also seemed that whatever lessons could be learned were limited by the omnipresent cameras and the possibility that the show was at least partially scripted, although those involved with the show have denied any such scripting. To me, the first season’s outcome was an intriguing but ultimately depressing comment on human nature, which seemed to prove Hatch right. The message suggested that good guys do finish last, that you have to lie and connive to win, and that loyalty means little to nothing. Now that I think about it, that’s not just depressing, it’s demoralizing.

For me, Sonja’s success in real life brings some much-needed perspective to the televised contest that Survivor recreates every season. Maybe it’s only when we compare the show to real life and specifically the real lives of the former contestants that it takes on full meaning. I’m now wondering how the other contestants have done since, both the winners and the losers. Does winning Survivor have anything to do with long-term success in life? I suppose that depends on how you define success. If it’s about fulfilling one’s dreams, then I would think Sonja Christopher is the big winner. I doubt it could have been Hatch’s dream to end up in jail.

I recently saw a television interview with a documentary filmmaker. His subject was a homeless man to whom he gave a hundred thousand dollars. The experiment was designed to see whether a large amount of money would solve the man’s problems and give him a new lease on life or create more problems—and the subject received medical and psychological exams to make sure he was healthy and able to take advantage of the help. Sadly, the documentary followed the man as he recklessly spent every cent of the money and ended up in debt and back on the streets. Prior to that he’d been homeless and broke, but he’d had no debts, so he was actually in worse shape than before the experiment.

Why didn’t the money make the man’s life better? Because he used it to prove to others that he was worthwhile. He tried to buy happiness, love, and respect. If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that money doesn’t make us worthwhile. It’s what we do with the money. It’s how we realize our plans, goals, and dreams. We are all born worthy, children of God or children of the universe, whatever you choose to believe the source is. I believe we’re all born with the ability to dream too, but life often does a good job of dashing those dreams and with it our sense of purpose and our intrinsic feelings of worth. When that happens, worth becomes external instead of internal. It becomes what we do and what we have instead of who we are.

When asked what she’d learned since Survivor, Sonja Christopher said she’d learned that giving was good. Sure, she wanted to win the million dollars, but it had never been her dream to live large or impress others in an attempt to feel better about herself. It had been her dream to give the money away.

She didn’t win the million, but she still managed to turn a little into a lot, exactly the opposite of the “winners” in my examples, who turned a lot into a little. And she did it because she had a vision of what life could be like, and she didn’t give up on it.

As we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King this week, it seems all the more appropriate to acknowledge that dreams are important. They can sustain us through the worst of life’s slings and arrows. Hang onto a dream and it can be your phoenix, lifting you up from the depths. It doesn’t have to be a grand dream either, though there’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t despair if your dreams are humble. You can help yourself and others by volunteering at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or starting a day-care center in your home for kids, or designing high heels that don’t hurt women’s feet. (Please someone, do that!).

When it comes to dreams, no one else’s standards matter. It’s YOUR dream. I’ve had a bad knee since a running injury fifteen years ago. One of my current dreams is to be able to exercise using that knee again. I don’t need to run marathons. A thirty-minute walk would be great. Not a very grand dream to most people. To me it’s lofty—and one I should never have relinquished for so many years.

Lynn Kerstan blogged recently about childhood dreams. Are any of your dreams the ones you had as a child, or have they changed? Some of mine have changed. Others haven’t. Most are still attainable, although I doubt the American Ballet Theater is looking for a woman of a certain age with a gimpy knee. But what do I care? All I want to do today is walk down the beach again, pier to pier.

So, I’m in the process of revisiting my dreams. How about you? What about the little ones that you let go by the wayside, believing they weren’t important or that someone might make fun of them. Consider reclaiming at least one of them, grabbing ahold with both hands, hanging on and letting it lift you.

Onward and upward,

Suz