As I shovel out the driveway in the latest snowstorm, I am ignoring a huge wooly mammoth. Not a real mammoth, of course. I’m still thinking about the economic climate (See Day 1: Waking Up in the Middle of the Night). Who isn't?
My brother has posted a comment on the Day 1 blog. He too is worried. And it got me thinking about going with the same topic. Years from now, I'll look back at this year's 12 wishes to recall this defining time in world economics.
Tonight, I heard a song at my daughter’s Christmas concert that I hadn’t heard in ages. My wife and I found ourselves singing along with it, even though the song’s theme is relatively sad. And it reminded me of a Christmas in the early 60’s.
It must have been ’63 or ’64. My parents sat us five brothers just before Christmas and told us about some hard times. They said it was not a good year for business. So, we were going to have a less than grand Yuletide celebration.
They weren’t kidding. Instead of a tree, we had construction paper pasted on a wall to look like a Christmas tree. Christmas Dinner was like a regular meal. Despite the mood, Santa still managed to give us some simple gifts on Christmas morning.
And playing on the old record player was my father’s favorite Christmas album: “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” with the Ray Conniff singers. Chances are even you have heard that high-reverb 60’s style music in an elevator or department store at Christmas time. The main song medley included Let it Snow!, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Count Your Blessings.
Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) is from the 1954 film “White Christmas” and was sung by Bing Crosby. The words are simple and appropriate for these times:
If we’re worried and you can’t sleep,
Just count our blessings instead of sheep
And we’ll fall asleep counting our blessings.
And if our bankroll is getting small
We’ll think about the time when we had none at all
And we’ll fall asleep counting our blessings.
As kids we wondered what “worried” and “bankroll” meant. But we sang along with the Conniff medley without really understanding it. How interesting that we should learn about these words the hard way.
Now let me shift to Admiral James Stockdale for a moment. Bear with me and I will make the connection with the above discussion.
Admiral Stockdale became well known as the bumbling candidate in the 1992 U.S. Vice Presidential debate. When you view his "Who am I?" segment in Youtube, you will feel uncomfortable.
Stockdale was a decorated war hero, and not a public figure. He was a great writer and an inspiration to his troops, and he was a horrible debater. He was an educator and a leader, and he suffered from dementia until his death.
After author Jim Collins met Stockdale a few years ago, he was so taken by the paradoxical nature of this person and his ways, that he put together the Stockdale Paradox. During his 8 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he kept his fellow prisoners alive by admonishing the optimists: “We’re not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!”
The Stockdale Paradox goes:
Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.
AND at the same time
Confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
And here is the connection. We must confront the brutal facts of this economic situation, and at the same time, have faith that we will prevail in the end.
Optimism prevents us from confronting the facts, and so does worry. Having faith that we will prevail in the end is not necessarily optimism either. It is a belief that if we work on it, our collective effort, and Divine Providence, will give relief.
Counting our blessings and retaining faith takes away worry. We need the Stockdale Paradox in today’s economic climate.
My wish for today is for all of us to realize we are more blessed than we think.
No comments:
Post a Comment