Several years ago, a research study looked at people who had suffered severe adversity – cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, to name a few – and survived. They found that people generally fell into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger.
This third set of people reminds me of the life of Admiral Jim Stockdale. During the height of the Vietnam War, Stockdale was held prisoner and tortured over twenty times for eight years, from 1965 to 1973. He instituted rules that would help people to deal with torture. The rules state that after a certain number of minutes, you will say certain things that give milestones to survive toward. When asked how he made it through those eight years, Stockdale insists, “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!”
This third set of people never had a goal merely to survive but to persevere through to the end. Ultimately, use whatever is before you as an opportunity to remake you great. This same principle holds true when it comes to crossing one’s own culture and working among people with another worldview, belief system, and cultural values. Just “stick it out”!!!