Stanford is not a prison and you are not POWs, but today, I want to use the story of one American POW to talk about what you and the officer in this story have in common: brutal realities.

Stanford’s brutal realities include the grading system, along with the 24 hour clock, the 10-week quarter, the RBA deadline you’re up against, and the cliff you’re about to fall off if Graduation Day is your primary June milestone.

I’m not trying to jam your face in the mud, I promise. But the mud is there, and sometimes comes leaping at you. I hope this week’s blog will help you learn what to do with it.

The Stockdale Paradox

Jim Stockdale was a United States military officer held captive in a 3×9′ cell for eight years during the Vietnam War. During his imprisonment, his shoulders were wrenched from their sockets, his leg shattered by angry villagers, and his back was broken. And yet, when Stockdale was interviewed by James C. Collins for his book Good to Great, he said:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story, 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.”

He told Collins about those who didn’t make it out of Vietnam:

“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.”

Collin’s phrase “The Stockdale Paradox” came from Stockdale’s statement:

“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.”

Facing Stanford’s brutal realities

What do you do with the brutal realities you face as a student? Well, first, you claim them from the baggage carousel and embrace them as your own. And then, you open the bag and see what is inside, and what it can teach you.

What’s inside your brutal reality?

• bad grades
• academic suspension
• judicial sanctions
• parents pressuring you
• love gone wrong
• illness
• death

But what do these things have to teach you (you are a student, after all)? Having interviewed many people for The Resilience Project, here’s what they have learned from their brutal realities:

• Bad grades taught them: “how to study differently,” “that my parents don’t just love me because I get A’s,” “how to write better”
• Academic suspension taught them: “there’s life after screw-ups,” “if I’m going to make it at Stanford I better use some of those resources they keep telling me about”
• Judicial sanctions taught them: “I should have taken the NP instead of cheating”
• Love gone wrong taught them: “love is the most important thing there is,” “I should go out with people who are kind to me”
• Illness taught them: “next to love, health is the most important thing there is”
• Death taught them: “life matters,” “things don’t matter as much as people.”

The Stanford Paradox

The Duck Syndrome is Stanford’s paradox. Everyone fears that they are the mistake, the stupid one, the one who’s trying too hard and succeeding less, or the one who might not be happy all of the time. But letting these fears guide our daily choices is the ultimate mistake. You have opportunities everyday to ask interesting questions and do interesting things with interesting topics and people. Not asking these questions, not taking these chances, because you’re afraid of looking stupid, is exactly that – stupid. We must be disciplined in our daily interactions and understand the realities that lie under the surface of the pond if we are to ever succeed in the long run.

Never paddle past opportunities to learn.