[MENTION=5494]Amargith[/MENTION]: I think most people understand that we can't be perfect or godlike, so in a lot of cases of self-rejection, the hubris runs laterally rather than vertically. That is, one doesn't want to be somebody sublime so much as to be a mortal other than themselves. "I can be perfect" vs "I can be anyone I want to be". Contrary to what children's television told us, there's a distinct and finitely flexible limit to each person's capabilities set by a number of natural and nurtural things like personality, physical build, etc. The self-hate happens when you think you
must be something outside of your unique bounds, whether it's higher or equal but simply too distant.
I can't fathom your behavior question. I simply won't behave in a fundamental way I don't respect. I suppose if I ever did under circumstances of extreme duress I may lose respect for myself, but then I would go about making amends/getting back to normal once I could address whatever circusmstances caused the behavior in the first place.
My @ to Amargith is a lynchpin that can change all of this. The moment your definition of "respectable" exits your personal range of capabilities, it becomes impossible to do anything you can respect, including moral amendments. One's behavior need not change at all from what it was before the bar was raised (though, unhelpfully, it probably will out of emotional fatigue). The picture changed because the observer moved, not the observed.
The question is what pushed the observer of oneself into this unrealistic stance. You ask it yourself in response to ygolo.
I realize my initial question was oriented toward behavioral choices in the eyes of values that stay solid, like your reply, so I'm not saying your reply wasn't apt in light of the original perspective. It was.
I think it's hard to change your true nature, but if you clealy don't respect a certain behavior, even if you behaved that way a time or two, it should be easy to stop this behavior. Otherwise I would question whether you truly believe said behavior is so dispicable.
The loss of ability to forgive oneself, as detailed above, can demotivate on this front and lead to addiction. Keep doing it, you suck; stop, you still suck. But other factors like mental illness, fear, threat of hardship to yourself or someone under your care, and the mere strength of human habit can make it a challenge to change one's ways, too. Behavior often lags behind mental epiphany and changes in philosophy. See: self-help industry.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.â€
― Maya Angelou
Personal values rarely are the only forces on our behavior. Even when we consciously think they are, they may not be. I think that is something to aspire to, though. To try one's best to distill their decisions down to rational self-direction uncorrupted by instinctual/emotional/chemical baggage, especially when it isn't easy.
I like how solid your source of confidence is. Your post is an explicit summary of what I admire in a lot of Ji doms around here, but also cool without reference to typology.