Cheers! It seems like your attitude is healthy and not self injurious. So that’s good. In posting this, you’re open enough to consider a possible blind spot. You’re curious, but not vexxed.
I wanted to pursue the answer to the second question in a moment but wanted to ask a couple of follow up questions first.
- How do close friends and family regard you when you are trying to live this pure life?
- Are you able to be vulnerable with them?
- Do you hold them to these standards as well?
- Do you hold them to standards that they don’t hold themselves to?
So as whole, I suspect you’re well adjust especially if the above isn’t negatively effecting anyone. The following is a deeper set of questions. Their resolution, as far as I know, doesn’t necessarily bring about increased health and could, for certain types of psyches, be destabilizing. I don’t think you are that type of person, but listen to your own heart of course.
Regarding the second answer, you wish to die knowing you lived life to fullest. What does this wish give you? If you do stumble and you do have a regret at the time of your death, why does it matter? Another way of asking this would be, if there is no after life and you are dead, what does it matter that you then died with a regret? What purpose does dying with no regret serve? In a similar vein, does not wanting to die with regrets keep you from pursuing parts of life that you might have pursued if you did not have that goal?
I want reiterate that that these questions aren’t an indicator of mental health. I also want to say that the framing of the issue and the questions lend itself to seeming like there’s a right answer. There isn’t. Honestly, the right answer could be that it feels right. And not having that feels wrong.
It can be interesting to have high moral standards. No one goes around thinking they have low moral standards. Rather, most people conceive of themselves as having high standards that still make them socially relatable. Some people use their high moral stands to isolate themselves. This can lead to either sadness or hubris. Either way, these standards can make it difficult to connect them. How to open up, how far to open, how long to open comes so naturally to most that it’s like riding a bicycle or tying your shoelaces.
If the learning window is missed, having people explain what feels natural is difficult for them. If you’ve ever taught someone to ride a bicycle or tie their shoes, you know what I mean. Many people who missed this window are not predisposed to type of intelligence and we’re busy enthralled with something else. So they are at the same time, often, advance in one area and deficient in another.
If they’ve situated their pride and identity in the area in which they previously focused and if they also have a pride that values results over process embarrassment and shame can creep in. Vulnerability is a liability and not an asset.
In the case of hubris, I think it’s due to a feeling of fear of vunerersbility and shame causing one to harden their resolve so that they don’t feel the shame again.
In the case of those with sadness, it due to a loneliness. No one else shares their high morals and therefore no one gets who they are.
I don’t think you’re either one of these and none of this is as linear as I’ve presented it or as clear cut. Just some tendencies. You may find one sentence resonates strong and another wholly off the mark. Of course if your pride is more flexible and you don’t mind the process, that great! The above will only appear as shadows and not currents.
But it sounds like you have healthy relationships with friends and family, so I don’t think you really have to worry about too much. In my view, vulnerability and empathy create a bond that is strong in a way that you can lose yourself. You can never really lose yourself of course and, I believe, that you never really have yourself as well. But in a space of love and connection we are freer to be a spontaneous expression of self with and through others and they with us.
This is rather cryptic as experience roots words. But this is a space or mode of living that can open when connections are created. And high morals can isolate one from those opportunities. That isolation can keep us separate from creative acts as well. And these are the types of things that I would say you might be missing out on. I don’t think they are readily available to most, but they seem to appear occasionally.
Any case… I hope I didn’t get too woo for you or make it sound like there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing. You sound like a high character individual and suspect when your friends and family reflect upon you, there is warmth in their hearts.