ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FOLLOWING IDEALS AND HOW THEY AID US

The following of "ideals" is a purposive and constructive thing for human beings to do in their lives and is an activity that is mostly pursued by those who are noble and moral of character and also by those individuals who have a lot of integrity and honour. There are individuals who we meet in our everyday lives who follow role models or people they admire, but the problem with this course of action is that we tend to become faint copies of the people we admire and not truly ourselves and also we become far too respectful of the errors made by the role models that we follow and there are even people who spend a lot of time defending the faults and errors that have been committed by their role models and they engage in this defensive activity in open discussions with people who might say something negative about their role models or heroes. Ideals are either "abstract" or "actual" or they can be said to be a combination of both together. Our emotions, feelings, passions and hopes aim towards our "ideals" and "values" because meaning is nearly always objective and our ideals and values are objectified goals as things that are worthy for us to strive towards that give us meaning and the searching and striving for meaning always requires many goals.
A harmony and balance of different and varied meanings is what we appear to strive towards when following ideals because being multidimensional is more suited to our complex designs as human beings than does singular convictions of a stubborn kind. "Ideals" it can be said give us hope and purpose and without them our lives would seem to be lacking in any type of inner life or meaning. In the past religion and mythology gave our ancestors hope and meaning in their often difficult and brief lives and this is because religion and mythology represented their inner subjective hopes projected outwardly towards an objective meaning they thought existed in the world or cosmos at large. A desire for meaning is a subjective urge or need but meaning in the fullest sense can only be found objectively, for example, to lose one's enthusiasm and curiosity for the objective world of things whether they be real or ideal is to give in to despondency or lack of meaning subjectively. Whatever ideals a person chooses to follow will, I am sure depend on his or her character because the reason for following ideals are that we create our own meaning and purpose by the ideals that we follow.
To be a realist that follows ideals is the best way to approach the following of ideals because to follow ideals without regard for reality or the material conditions of things seems like an impractical thing to do. Consciousness is determined by life and real things so ideals must be in accord with practical and actual events as well as material conditions and situations, there should be a harmony and balance between the concrete and the abstract aspects of ideals. Even though "willing", is "willing something" as an aim for its total condition and fulfillment, it would still be impossible to be willing any particular thing without desire, need, attraction, purpose, striving, motives, reasons, etc. Willing is an end and "an end" includes an evaluation and this evaluation depends on our natures and it is our natures that give us our values, but nothing is valuable "in itself" and this is because processes ultimately have no meaning, meaning is a temporary truth and is less real than infinite processes which have no real aim, purpose or meaning. Our values are based on what is "pleasant" or "painful" to us personally as individuals and our ideals are a type of value to us because they represent our hopes of what is pleasant, enjoyable and meaningful to us. The authentic type of person determines his or her own values, ideals and meanings not by what other people think, but by what is advantageous to themselves, because to be authentic means to be truthful to oneself and one's own nature. When we follow ideals we are following concrete ideas rather than blind feelings (because feelings are only useful if you account for the motives or needs of these feelings) or faith in wishful thinking and self deception, which lets face it, is what hope in spirituality is. Any good motive for feelings can be useful if these feelings are based on ideals, real values, genuine sentiment and rational instinctual desires. Some people prefer to be free from ideals, but this is their own choice which for them is grounded in their own values, but a life without ideals lacks stability and purpose. Human beings are in general, a weak, flawed and imperfect race, the simple act of following any of them as an example of how things should be done or experienced, can only end badly, to put any of them up on a pedestal to be worshipped is a mistake at best. In the past people created the concept of God as a perfect ideal that was worth following or emulating. But now the concept of God is no longer a feasible or adequate ideal for most people to follow and so now it becomes necessary for most people to follow the ideals that suit them. Personal ideals and values have replaced most of the religious and spiritual hopes and ideals of mainstream religions.