…And Then There Were Ten.
Viewers of NBC’s The Island witnessed last week as 27-year-old Iraq war vet Earnest struggled with being away from his family and ultimately decided to throw in the towel and return home.
The reality series, which follows 14 American men isolated on a deserted island with only the clothes on their backs and minimal survival tools, doesn’t include any of the usual reality show trappings. There are no prizes. No winners. So the decision give up on the ultimate challenge was a somewhat easy one.
Fortunately, for stay-at-home dad Rob Brothers, his mind was set to complete the challenge, though being away from his family for a whole month proved difficult.
“That was the hardest thing for me to deal with; it was not the physical, it was literally before I left, I don’t think I’d been away from my family longer than six hours,” Brothers shared with OMFGTV during a press call. “We’re pretty committed parents, my wife and I, and we enjoy spending time with our kids. I knew it was going to be hard, I just didn’t know how hard it was going to be. And I believe with deprivations of food and water, I started to get really raw, really raw and vulnerable emotionally.”
Being away from his family definitely took a toll, but the experience taught him a few things and even changed his life. “I had a pretty profound experience on The Island,” he explains. “And I believe I did because I opened myself to it and I really committed to living this experience as truthful as possible. I found some deficiencies in myself. I found that I could be a better husband; that I thought I might be shortchanging my wife at home.
“I think I went in to this experience with a sort of paradigm of thinking that, while I’m a committed dad and I’m a committed husband, it wasn’t enough. I learned on the island that it wasn’t enough, that I had to go deeper; that I could be a better dad and I could be a better husband.”
Returning to the comfort and luxuries of home took Rob a bit of an adjustment to roll back into. “It’s as if I had a flip phone and then just someone gave me an iPhone for the first time,” he says. “I had no idea how to use it. I literally sat down in the chair and I couldn’t touch the screen. It was kind of a bit of a culture shock. It was – that was a big adjustment.
“The other adjustment was the whole food deal. My appetite was absolutely huge. And you know, they did their best; the medics got us in a room and said, ‘Look guys, I know you all want to just absolutely go crazy, and you know, shove down 15,000 calories, but it’s not good for you. It can induce swelling with such an influx of salts and sugar. And so you need to take it slow.’ But there’s just no way that was happening.”
For many, the thought of willingly subjecting themselves to these conditions is insane, but Rob Brothers tells us that he is not averse to going back to the island.
“I found that if I would do it again, I think that I’m a pretty strong willed guy and I have this mental fortitude. And I would try to work harder. I would try to push myself past bigger limits and to see if I could even do a better job. That’s what I would do next time.”
The Island airs Mondays at 10pm on NBC.