SHALLY A.

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality- James Stockdale. James Stockdale is an American Navy Vice-Admiral, who was a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam war. I imagine he and other captors were tormented, starved, and felt defeated many times. Pain can lead to three reactions - defeat, blind optimism, or hope. When you feel defeated, you give up, while blind optimism is what most self-help teachers preach - the belief we will be out of pain before we know it; the speak positively into your future gyrations - while hope is optimism that we will prevail in the end.   James survived and was awarded a Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War. He described those who did not survive, 'Those who never made it always had blind optimism. They would say, we would be out by Christmas, and Christmas would come, and they would feel defeated. Then, they would make a new deadline; we will be out by