You cannot be extremely idealistic if you want to be happy as well

A lot of people may think I am an idealist. I promote honesty, often speak about helping others, try to expose fraudulent activities and spread what I am believing to be thoughts that will help humanity. I am not, however, very idealistic. I see myself as rather realistic – with a positive attitude. More than that, I actually believe that idealists have difficulties being happy. Let me explain you why – and what you can do to be happy.

Why will idealism not make you happy? Because the world is not an ideal place. It is not perfect and it cannot be! We all have different ideas of what is perfect and we work towards those goals, even if another person thinks they are not right. So you will never have the ideal situation – although you can of course try to make your surroundings as ideal for you as possible.

You can change a lot instead of just getting depressed about the state of affairs. Take care of the big things, of those ideals which are really important to you. Learn to accept them. It is necessary to accept that there are little things that are not ideal. You may want to leave the idea of always having everything 100% according to your ideals – because it won’t be like this and it will make you unhappy.

That’s how I think I am more realistic and don’t want to be idealistic. There are a lot of situations with a higher motive that would make me behave differently than I would normally say is ideal.

Let me give you an example: I am fully against violence. I promote non-violent education in school and urge parents to do the same at home, too. I am against violence against animals and violence against each other, even in normal talk. I will not go that far and say however that I will never get violent. Should I feel threatened in a dangerous situation, should someone want to harm me or my wife and daughter, I would not hesitate to use my fists. I will not let someone beat me and just accept the pain – self-defense would be an example in which I believe violence is fully justified.

There are many more such examples! Ideally, people are against corruption. They regret having to give bribes in order to get their work done. In order to expose such corruption however – or any other such wrong happenings – people make sting operations, thus filming someone without his or her consent! That is generally immoral and you would not do that according to your ideals. For the higher motive of exposing and putting a stop to wrong actions, you do it anyway!

I am realistic in this way and don’t have any trouble accepting the fact that higher motives exist. Don’t be too extreme in your ideals because it will make you unhappy. You will regret your ‘immoral actions’ which you did for a higher purpose. It is too extreme and won’t give you peace.

Be honest about what you feel and think, stay true to your ideals but give reality a chance – this will make you happy!