Tag Archives: optimism

What Doesn’t Kill You

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My cardiologist told me this week that more extensive testing reveals that one of the things that could kill me is not really a thing.

Good news.

Another thing that was trying to kill me, a complication from the last open heart surgery, has been fixed by a simple but gross procedure.

That’s two things that could kill me crossed off the list in one week. Not a bad week.

The other thing trying to kill me is still a thing, but there is a plan and there are options and I am not out of time.

I was expecting this thing to progress quickly and cause dramatic symptoms. That’s how it’s been in the past. This will allegedly progress much slower. There may be yet another open heart surgery in my future, but not immediately. There are other options to try first.

I am, once again, going with the optimism. Foolish? Maybe. But if you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know this is what I do. Know the worst outcome, wrestle with it, and then choose to believe in the best. I have occasional lapses. Some news is pretty dark. But mostly, I get there.

As for the last two things trying to kill me, they remain under surveillance. I try mostly to forget about them. Mostly I am successful.

And, it’s worth noting that I could get hit by a bus or by falling satellite debris. Anything is possible, including living.

For the record, none of the things not killing me is making me stronger. If you’ve ever said, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” to someone, go apologize at once.

Living the Stockdale Paradox

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As surgery approaches, I have things to say.

I want to rail against how long it took to get here. There was time wasted, time that sapped my strength and energy. I have feelings about that. I try my best to put it to rest. To be at peace with it. But crisis brings issues into focus. I’ve come to understand in a deep way that I was neglected as a child. This childhood neglect has coloured my life, what and who I care about, what causes I fight for, and how I react to neglect today. It shaped me. As all our childhoods do. This is good learning for me. It explains myself to me.

I used to joke about the neglect I experienced and say things like “I was raised by wolves,” or say the neglect was benign. It was not. It’s good to be clear about that. I can be at peace with it while still knowing it is true. I don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen to live a happy life and do my best to be a good person.

Anyway, the time wasted in getting to this surgery is a trigger. It falls into the category of neglect. I have taken it hard. It’s important for me to know that. I don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen to survive this.

For a long time, I’ve had this quotation from Admiral Jim Stockdale taped up near my desk. “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 may be.” Recently, I learned this quotation is so famous that it has a name: The Stockdale Paradox. Stockdale was a prisoner of war. He knew about brutal reality.

The brutal facts of my current reality are daunting. But I know them and I live them at the same time as I believe I can overcome them. I am optimistic. I have experience overcoming. I can do it again. Being rigorously truthful about what it is I face is an essential part of what I have come to understand as a practice. Like meditation. Or deep breathing. Or yoga.

Unfortunately, my practice of being brutally honest about the conditions I face, my full embrace of the Stockdale Paradox, is often misread as negativity or pessimism.

On the contrary. My optimism is grounded in reality. My survival depends on truth-telling. And I will survive.

The thing I want to say is that all of our survival depends on truth-telling and on confronting brutal facts. Know them. Believe them. Whether they are personal medical disasters, like mine, or social and ecological disasters that each and every one of us face, confront them. Know them. Believe them. And believe you will prevail. Denial is the killer. It prevents us from taking appropriate and timely action.

Kind freinds have sent words to me. One said the word “valiant.” I like that word. Be valiant with me.

See you on the other side.