The Stockdale Paradox.

In his book titled "Good To Great", Jim Collins writes about a survival psychology, The Stockdale Paradox which was named after a former prisoner of war, James Stockdale. 

Admiral James Bond Stockdale was the highest-ranking naval officer to be held as a prisoner of war (POW) in Hanoi prison, Vietnam. Literature tells us that a broken bone on his back, a broken leg and a paralyzed arm were only the beginning of the misfortunes that laid before the next seven and a half years of his captivity. 

After enduring no fewer than 15 times of physical torture, incessant mental torture, beatings, whippings...(you name it), his survival was attributed to his belief on the importance of retaining the unwavering faith (a stern belief) that one will prevail in the end. And with equal importance, he also emphasised the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of one’s current reality, “whatever they may be”. 

What this translates to in the present time is the importance to acknowledge whatever circumstances life has handed us, changing whatever we have control over in order to change the (unfavourable) outcome, influencing whatever is outside our area of control but within our field of influence in order to change the results, and lastly accepting that which we can neither control nor influence.

Doing so with absolute “faith that in the end, we will prevail…”.

Ayanda Magwagwa