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James Stockdale and the Power of Realistic Optimism
James Stockdale spent over seven years as a prisoner of war and credited Stoicism with getting him through. What he noticed there became the Stockdale Paradox: the people who broke first were the optimists, the ones who kept saying they would be home by Christmas. In this short lesson I look at why realistic optimism beats the cheerful kind, and what that means for facing anything hard.
This is the first in a series of short lessons on my favourite Stoic figures, ancient and modern.
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The skinny
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