During your life, you have likely already lived through many “bad days.” The problems you faced on those days were probably trivial, however, compared to spending six years as a prisoner of war in northern Vietnam. On Monday night, during a forum titled, “Escape from the box: The wonder of human potential,” Edward Hubbard, a retired officer in the Air Force, spoke to Rensselaer students about how his time in captivity changed his perspective on life.
Hubbard’s company, the investment firm Edward Jones, proposed in 1999 that Hubbard speak at forums near each of their offices’ locations as a public service. Since then Hubbard has spoken at about 850 out of 8,500 locations. His discussions, intended to help improve the quality of local residents’ lives, emphasize the importance of adapting your perspective to changes in life. “Perceptions rule our world ... Everything that happens in life is good or bad relative to everything else ... Life can be better than you think it can be,” said Hubbard.
On July 20, 1966, Hubbard’s plane traveling at 600 miles per hour was hit by two enemy missiles, forcing him to eject into hostile territory. “It’s probably the most exciting ride I’ve ever taken in my life ... [and also] the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Hubbard. After hanging in the air for twenty minutes, he landed and evaded enemy soldiers for 10 hours, before being captured at 5 pm that evening. “[Becoming a P.O.W.] was a bitter pill to swallow,” said Hubbard.
His cell was tiny, with only a small amount of room for walking around. He lived on two meals with 300 calories and four cups of water a day. Captivity did provide him one luxury, however: Spare time to review everything he had ever done in his life. It was the “most expensive education you’ll ever get in life,” noted Hubbard.
After spending his first Christmas away from family, Hubbard lost the self-pity and bad attitude that he had brought with him to captivity. He decided, “I’m going to survive ... Ninety-eight percent of others [in the world] had it worse. If I could change [my] perception, I could change the outcome.”’
As a group, Hubbard and his fellow prisoners were not permitted to talk in solitary confinement, so they created an elaborate knocking system of communication. A wooden block could be divided into a 25-matrix cell, with each cell corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. (The letter c was not used.) To keep their minds occupied, the prisoners shared everything they had committed to memory. Hubbard learned Spanish and all 42 verses of a Kipling poem through that form of communication. “[The] strength and unity we got from that is absolutely amazing,” said Hubbard.
He emphasized changing your life by applying incremental improvements. By doing more each day, Hubbard was able to set the world record of 3,600 consecutive jump-ropes during mandatory physical activity. He did it “because I tried. I [had] never tried before ... You can’t buy that performance with money.”
Hubbard’s Vietnam experience taught him that everything you’ve done in life could have been done better. Hubbard always asks his audiences to write down any experiences that they could not have improved upon and to send him the post-it note if they ever fill it. Since he started speaking 25 years ago, Hubbard has only received two notes—one from someone who had just had a child, and another from someone who had just gotten married. “You’ve never scratched the surface of what you’re capable of doing ... It’s not [always] an easy concept [to take].”
Hubbard believes people should make an effort to understand the value of teamwork, competition, problem-solving, and hope, in accomplishing their goals. They should believe in their abilities and be prepared to make the effort needed to change things. “[Opportunities] are always out there. You have to find them. You will be amazed how good life starts to get,” said Hubbard. “What matters is how you respond. How you deal with adversity—that determines how many bad days you will have.”
