Robert Patterson's blog alerted me to this: James Stockdale Dies at 81. Stockdale was perhaps best known for introducing himself as Ross Perot's running mate in the 1992 race's Vice Presidential debates by saying: ""Who am I? Why am I here?" The result was undeserved ridicule.
He is better remembered for his time as a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. Jim Collins' "Good To Great" Introduces the Stockdale Paradox:
"You must never confuse faith that 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 might be.”
I tend to follow Ghandi's path more than Stockdale's, but Ghandi's statement that "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony," is one with which I think Stockdale would agree, and I'd bet that he lived by that description.
I think that maintaining faith is often a matter of living with fear without yeilding to it, which is why Stockdale is deservedly considered a hero. Faith is the key to optimism: faith in yourself, faith in the essential good of other people, faith in your community, faith in a purpose. He recieved the Congressional Medal of Honor because for the eight years he was held captive he helped other prisoners to confront reality, live with fear and torture, and still keep faith that they would eventually return home.
