I had written a review of “Man’s search for meaning” last week. My friend and CKO of my company, Sukumar had commented that I should look up The Stockdale Paradox. It is named after Admiral, Jim Stockdale who was imprisoned in Vietnam. He was tortured for 8 years before he was released. How did he survive for 8 years when many of his fellow prisoners died within a few months?
Stockdale says ““I never lost faith. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” Strangely the people who did not survive were the optimist, those who thought they will be released by Christmas and when it did not happen they died of a broken heart. This is very close to Frankl’s experience too. He says the death rate increased close to Christmas because people who believed they would be spending it with their family, died of disappointment.
Stockdale says, “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.” (source)
Frankl and Stockdale were really great people who could resolve such paradoxes in life-threatening and desperate situations. But what about us ordinary people? Don’t we face paradoxes in our lives?
I want to teach my son that he should strive to be the best in his class. The desire to be on the top of his class would drive him to work hard and bring out his full potential. At the same time, I want him to understand that winning is not everything. If he doesn’t, he will be constantly disappointed and he will not be able to make friends with people who are more talented and better than him. Every time he participates in a competition I struggle to get this point across. “You have to do your best, you have to keep improving but winning is not everything.”
Don’t we face a similar paradox in office too. We have to work as a team but we are also competing with our peers for appraisals and promotions.
Would love to know how you deal with such paradoxes?
Hi Archana,
I came across an email story(real) that one man is always optimistic. The reporter asked him how its possible to be positive even in worse situations….
He told that he was stabbed by a robber in his shop…he was almost dead, but even at that time he had a positive attitude…He had two choices either to live or to die…he chose to live….
His advice is that the problems always have two choices…but we ve to select the best one…
cheers……
Thanks Praveen. I read that story too. But does seem beyond the realm of normal people. How many of us can look at the bright side of being stabbed. May be we can see it in retrospect but not when it is actually happening.
Being my usual skeptical self, I have problems with the facts and logic underlaying Admiral Stockdale’s paradox. We only have his word that people who didn’t share his mindset died at a higher rate. The big problem with stories like this is we simply don’t know how many people shared the mindset but died anywise, so basically we have an example of “counting the hits and ignoring the misses.” I wonder if any scientific studies have ever been made of the mindset of people who have survived such experiences.
All that aside, there does seem to be some evidence that positive thinking is a good thing. Always an interesting subject and food for thought, that’s for sure. Thanks for posting.
This paradox seems interesting! But positive thinking does work. I have heard people say, write down your goals and repeat it everyday and you will realise that some day your goal comes true. I think its all in the mind.
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I repeat to myself am going to have a good day and it just works out!
Dealing with paradoxes is surely tough. Probably “Experience” teaches all of us to deal with paradoxes. For eg., initially if a child loses a competition he/she might feel terribly down but as times go by they do learn that participating is what was important and not the result.
Thanks Doug. thats definitely some food for thought
Thank you Saraswathi. There is no doubt that positive thinking is self fulfilling.
While I conditionally agree that positive thinking is a good thing, there are two things the premise that make me very uncomfortable. The first is that the idea is often exploited by hucksters to make a buck, “The Secret” being a great example, or things like the lottery and other gambling.
The second, and worse imho, is that the creed of “positive thinking” is very much used by the haves to excuse themselves for any responsibility for the have nots. IE “The poor wouldn’t be poor if they would just apply themselves.” This sort of argument gets used a lot by the so called pious in the USA, so I guess that’s why it bothers me.
As always, this blog is making me think, thanks for posting.
I agree Doug. This concepts has been stretched beyond limit these days.
The biggest irony I can remember is Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote “The power of positive thinking”. He committed suicide!!!
Or Rodale claiming on live TV that with his hyper healthy organic diet he expected to live another 50 years and reach 100 easily. Moments later he dropped dead of a heart attack. @@
[...] Raghuram’s excellent post on Man’s search for Meaning and her follow up post on the Stockdale Paradox gave me the impetus to write this [...]
You may want to check out the book by Carol Dweck called “Mindset”. You can read more about my brief review of the book here: http://prazas.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/my-reading-list/.
At the very least, it should give you some direction on how to teach your child to do his best yet understand that winning is not everything. Best of luck!