The Stockdale Paradox

Admiral Jim Stockdale was a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton for seven years and was tortured over twenty times. He was the highest ranking military officer to be captured during that war and the following observation is called "The Stockdale Paradox".

...we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, "Who didn't make it out?"

"Oh, that's easy," he said, "The optimists."

"The optimists? I don't understand," I said...

"The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

Another along pause... he turned to me and said, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith you will prevail in the end -- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be."

This is a stunning undergirding the the theology of the cross learned in the hottest of cauldrons. - DOB