Encouragement

My brother-in-law, Mike, sent me an article on James Stockdale months ago, and I go back and read it from time to time to encourage me. Stockdale was a POW for seven years during the Vietnam war and made it out alive.

An excerpt from Wikipedia:

When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

"Oh, that’s easy, 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."^[11]

Stockdale then added:

"This is a very important lesson. 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.”^[11]