Optimists Die of a Broken Heart

It's a cliche, do you find the glass half empty or half full?  A fantastic read is the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins.  Most of the latter part of the book Jim talks about businesses having the Hedgehog Concept.  When he describes this concept he explains there is a Greek parable that asks, are you a Hedgehog or are you a Fox?  A Fox is cunning, smart and always trying to think of ways to capture the Hedgehog.  A Hedgehog knows his strengths and he knows his weaknesses, he is consistent.  The Fox, being cunning, gets excited when he sees the Hedgehog in front of him, gets ready to pounce when the Hedgehog says to himself "Here we go, again" and rolls into a spiked ball.  The Fox sees this, and turns around and says to himself "Ok, off to make another plan to sneak attack the Hedgehog."

The Hedgehog is a Realist.  They accept the brutal facts, they know what they are good at, what they will never be good at, and go through life with the gift of knowledge.

This is great news, strong and steady wins the race.  What does that have to do with Optimists, I thought being Optimistic was the best way to be?  Jim Collins also refers to The Stockdale Paradox in his book.  Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest ranking officer in the "Hanoi Hilton", a German concentration camp.  He was there over 7 years and tortured over 20 times.  He came out of the camp even stronger then going in.  Jim Collins talks about his meeting with Admiral Stockdale and says of him "He endured everything and was never never wavered in faith that he would prevail, he would prevail by turning it into the defining event of his life that would make him a better person." Then Jim Collins asked Admiral Stockdale, "Who didn't make it out", the Admiral said, "Oh that it easy. It was the Optimists."  Collins said "I don't understand, the Optimists?" Stockdale replied, "Yes, the Optimists always said "We will be out by Christmas", then Christmas would come and it would go and there would be another Christmas and they said "We will be out by Christmas" and they died of a broken heart.

Stockdale then grabbed Collins by the shoulder and said "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 the facts and asking questions to get to the other side take much more time and energy then the "outs" that a Pessimist or an Optimist have, where the one will go one way without thought, the other will go the other way without thought, the Realist will sit down and face the facts dead on, figure it out and move to the next.  Who are you going to be?