Must we be faithful to our mistakes even if, by remaining faithful, we damage our higher selves?

No - there is no such law, no such obligation. We need to become traitors, to be unfaithful, to wantonly forsake our ideals again and again. It is not possible to pass from one period to another without inflicting these agonies of betrayal, and without suffering from them in turn. Should we then secure ourselves against the irruption of our feeling in order to seal ourselves off from these pains? Would not the world become too bleak, too ghostly, for us to bear? Rather, we should ask ourselves whether this pain inflicted by a change in conviction is necessary, or whether or not it depends on an erroneous opinion and evaluation? Why is it that we admire the man who remains faithful to his convictions and despise the one who changes? The answer must be that change in conviction is measured by false standards and that we have, until now at least, suffered too much from these changes.