“Don’t dread suffering. It only makes it worse. Anticipate it. Predict it. Even exaggerate it in your anticipation of it. Don’t fight a neurosis or a symptom of one. It may be a friend in disguise, a mere symptom of a deeper disturbance rendered less severe by it. A neurosis may well be a vital protective shield. Detach yourself from it. Predict it. Exaggerate. Laugh at it. It can safely and effectively be ridiculed away but not torn away. Try to find ‑‑ try to find meaning in this every circumstance. Meaning varies with the individual and with every circumstance. With him ‑‑ or with me it may vary by the hour. The meaning for a particular moment may simply be to endure that moment in a manner in which you can be proud of. But beware of false pride. Don’t expect too much. Perhaps in retrospect it will show that it was meaningful enough just to have endured, to have survived, to try. Perhaps at the end of it, it is just as meaningful to look back and say ‘I tried’ as it would be to say ‘I succeeded.’" - former Navy Commander Hugh Stafford, who became a prisoner of war in 1967 Vietnam
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:07:50 +0000
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