Years ago, Admiral James Stockdale wrote about what he learned in captivity from Epictetus, the stoic philosopher who taught that you control your own character, your own choices, and your own response to hardship.
You do not control the world. You do not control whether life is fair. You do control whether you keep your integrity.
That lesson ought to sound familiar in Wyoming.
For generations, Wyoming people have lived with hard facts. Winters do not care about your plans. Markets do not bend to your preferences. Drought does not pause because you are tired.
Distance, weather, isolation, and uncertainty are part of life here. So is the expectation that you face those things without whining, without theater, and without selling out your neighbor.
That is Stockdale’s world.
At our best, it is ours too.
Stockdale learned in the harshest possible setting that once you accept the first dishonest compromise, the rest come easier. He saw that integrity is not a slogan or a pose. It is the line you do not cross, especially when crossing it would make your life easier.
He also learned that community survives only when people protect one another, tell the truth, and refuse to damage the group for personal advantage.
Take a moment to consider how Wyoming used to understand character.
It was never about who could shout the loudest. It was not about who could perform outrage most convincingly.
It was about whether you kept your word. Whether you did your share. Whether people could trust you with responsibility. Whether you were steady when things got hard.
You see it in ranch country. You see it in volunteer fire departments, church kitchens, fair boards, and school events. In places like ours, community is not a theory. It is a survival skill.
That is why Stockdale’s lessons matter in Wyoming public life.
He understood that education in history and philosophy was not ornamental.
It gave him tools to resist manipulation, keep perspective, and understand that human nature does not change much. The forms change.
The pressure does not. The temptation does not.
That lesson fits our politics too.
When you know history, you are less likely to be stampeded by every loud claim, every manufactured grievance, every self-appointed savior who insists only he can rescue the state.
When you know something about human nature, you get better at spotting the opportunist, the flatterer, the person who wants power more than responsibility.
And Wyoming has no shortage of those these days.
This is where we have strayed.
Too often, we judge public figures by whether they use the right slogans, flatter the right audience, or perform the right version of purity.
We overlook dishonesty, rule bending, bullying, and hypocrisy if it comes wrapped in language we like.
That is not conservatism. That is not strength. That is not Wyoming.
Traditional Wyoming values were never built on theatrics.
They were built on restraint, responsibility, practicality, and a strong streak of mind your own business unless the community truly needs your involvement.
They were built by people who understood that government, like a ranch or a household, has to be managed with discipline, honesty, and respect for limits.
Stockdale also understood something else we need badly right now. Life is not fair. That does not mean you collapse into bitterness. It does not mean you invent conspiracies to soothe your ego. It means you accept reality, then decide what kind of person you are going to be anyway.
That is a Wyoming lesson if there ever was one.
We come back to these values by getting serious again about conduct. Ask less about what a politician says on social media. Ask more about whether they are direct.
Whether they tell the truth when it costs them. Whether they accept responsibility. Whether they strengthen public trust or poison it for personal gain.
We also come back by relearning local citizenship. Learn how your town, county, school board, and state actually work.
A citizen who understands process and history is harder to manipulate. A community full of such citizens is harder to divide.
Most of all, we come back by remembering that character still matters.
Not image. Not tribe. Not performance.
Character.
Stockdale’s lessons make us stronger because they push us back toward the habits that built Wyoming in the first place.
Integrity over expediency. Duty over ego. Community over self-promotion. Reality over fantasy.
In a time when too much of public life rewards vanity, grievance, and bad faith, those habits are exactly what Wyoming needs.
Gail Symons can be reached at: GailSymons@mac.com
