Survivor Lessons: Christine Edition

Tags

christine markoski, christine shields, gay, Ozzy, Survivor: South Pacific, Upolu

Wow Christine, what a ride we had with you! Normally, the first vote-off of the season gets forgotten in the haze of all the new people, but you kept things interesting and fun on the redemption beach side of things. It was very fun to compare her primarily strong and skeptical stay with that of Matt’s lengthy and spiritual/emotional one from last season.

So what lesson(s) can we get from Christine Shields Markoski’s experience? I think there are two primary things that we can take with us.

The first lesson is definitely one we should all take to the bank.

Be careful of what you’re saying until you know the mindset of the other people in your situation.

First day on the beach and first episode of the season, Christine made a huge mistake in her gameplay by being straight-shooter honest (go figure). When the tribes were introduced to Ozzy and Coach coming back into the game to play a third time, she responded to a question by Jeff in a way that set herself up for defeat.

Jeff asked her how she felt about seeing the two coming back into the game, and instead of responding in a safe and cautious, “it’ll be great to have their experience to help us adapt…” (or something of that nature)…she totally went balls-to-the-wall calling them “temporary players.” She figured that the others would take her lead and not allow them to stay in the game long.

Y’know we all would probably think that coming into a game like this…hoping the newbies would gather together against those who had already had their shot. But everyone’s motivations and mindsets are totally different and you can’t always bank on strangers immediately taking up your cause if it’s going to cause a stir.

We’ve all heard that “honesty is the best policy,” and that’s all well and good growing up. But once you put yourself out in the real world where a majority of the things you are doing are dealing with people you normally wouldn’t associate with, you hardly ever can be truly honest without jeopardizing your intentions in some way. Still hold to your morals and know that sometimes it is best to hold your tongue, or to reword your real thoughts so that it doesn’t set you apart and in a bad place.

When you go into a new work environment, you don’t tell the boss that they are incompetent and useless without knowing that you may pay a price for it (cleaning toilets comes directly to mind, or getting the cubicle in the very far corner with no windows whatsoever).

Immediately searching for the idol instead of attempting to mend this error further helped to isolate her and set herself up as a loose cannon and target.

With that being said, Christine also showed a great tenacity and strength to continually move on in the game despite the situation she found herself in. She spent way more days in isolation from the tribes than she did with them,and that would be enough to emotionally break most folks.

We’ve all been in situations where we’ve felt the hurdles in front of us are too high. We just need to take a deep breath, figure out a game plan, and keep moving forward. Most of us want things to happen for us overnight and to not have to put out a lot of work without some kind of reward or compensation. But let me tell you, only a very few people are instant winners, and a vast majority of folks who reached their goals did it steadily over time and with a lot of hard work.

Winning five straight duels, she kept herself composed, focused and had a clear goal in mind.

The only time she strayed was when she found herself competing against Ozzy and probably found herself nervous for the first time. I believe she was well aware of how good Ozzy is in challenges and probably psyched herself out.

Proof in point being that in a recent interview with her, I heard that the only way she really prepared for the show was practicing and refining her knot-tying skills. Odd enough, that it was in this very duel that knowledge would have given her an edge…but her nerves finally got to her. She became impatience and tried to rush her way through it. She had the ability to succeed, but let a mental obstacle keep her from attaining it.

I was so rooting for her to come back into the game. It would have been much more interesting, and after investing so many weeks in her journey on Redemption Beach, it was kind of a let-down to have Ozzy steal that from her like he did. At least we have Cochrane spicing things up with his mutiny.

So long Christine, you would have been great on the jury!