It takes a village to survive ‘Survivor’
The Slaw also has an actor’s insight, AFib redux and a dilemma you’ll flip over
Today’s Simply Slaw is mostly about compassion, for others and yourself, along with our usual hints of smartassedness. Let’s go:
Murphy Slaw
Something old: May we all be as hard to kill as some of our habits.
Something new: You can hate reality television and still find love for this wonderfully human moment from “Survivor.” Young Eva and her team had just conquered a tough challenge and she was obviously overwhelmed. Host Jeff Probst noticed, as did one of her former tribemates, Joe. What ensued left Probst choked up. He wasn’t alone.
(I didn’t want to bombard you with two “Survivor” videos, but if you want to see the challenge that sets this up, it’s here.)
Something borrowed: This hypothetical question might tell you a lot about yourself, from risk tolerance to happiness to where you stand. For a gambler, the answer’s easy: Flip the coin. Half the people who flip will become billionaires.
It’s not that simple, of course.
If $1 million is life-changing money — letting you buy a home, retire early, send your kids to college, whatever — you might feel better about taking the money instead of the risk, worried about a lifetime of kicking yourself in the tail if you called “heads.” Only about 1 in 8 U.S. households has a net worth over $1 million.
Maybe you’re worth $2 million or $3 million or $10 million and that extra mil is nice but relatively inconsequential, or maybe you’re worth $2 or $3 or $10 and your bohemian streak doesn’t give two shits about $1 million. Flip the damn coin. Improving the lives of lots of loved ones is worth aspiring to.
And if you lose, remember this line from hockey legend Bobby Hull: “My former wife made me a millionaire. I used to have 3 million.”
Something blue: There’s probably a part of Viola Davis in all of us, and it isn’t pretty. In an interview with The Times, the Oscar-winning actress described co-starring in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” with Chadwick Boseman and noticing his girlfriend and his make-up artist rubbing his back and playing meditative music. “There was a part of me that was a little judgmental — why do you need all that?” she recalled. “Little did I know that they were doing it because he was dying.”
Hers was a very human reaction. We can all be judgmental, and often it’s based on ignorance. If you don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life — and you don’t (watch the “Survivor” clip again) — the benefit of the doubt is a wonderful gift.
Something even more self-absorbed than the last thing I said was self-absorbed: Last week I had my ablation for AFib, leaving me with a less erratic heart and two conclusions:
If you’re over 50, buy an Apple Watch or worthy rival.
If you’re under 50, buy an Apple Watch or worthy rival.
Two reasons — from a guy who hadn’t worn any kind of watch for 40 years and generally hated them: My cardiologist said my prognosis is good and the fibbing and fluttering was caught fairly early, and a nurse in our hours-after-surgery observation area said she’s seeing close to half the patients like me seek treatment initially because their watches alerted them to one irregularity or another.
The watches aren’t perfect, but they might alert you to sleep apnea or irregular heartbeats or some other woes you haven’t noticed. And if that can help you dodge a stroke or heart attack or simply get you to take better care of yourself, you might end up feeling like a million bucks.