Be guided by principles and ethics, not facts on the ground only.
Don’t get trapped between the twin lies of Heavenly and Earthly mindedness. Neither be too Heavenly-minded to be of Earthly good nor too Earthly-minded to be of Heavenly good. Anyone can be too much of either to be useless for the other.
People will tell you to “look at the reality around you”. Yes, boots on the ground should tell the brass at command what can and can’t be done, but protocols remain the same. Reality doesn’t trump protocol. Values and principles—when wisely chosen—are practical and permanent. As you mature, you will need to re-evaluate yours, but that’s your problem that everyone else has too.
In fog, pilots must fly by instruments, not by feelings. Values are necessary because, when in the fray, dust from the work and the battle can cloud our judgment. Clouded judgment can’t navigate you out of a cloud.
If you can let go of an ideology then do it in your prayer time, not when someone wants to negotiate a compromise with you. If you wait until the negotiating table to see that your ideal is flawed, you have repenting to do in your next prayer time, which should probably be made urgently and with extended time.
The world is destroyed by one compromiser after another. The cascade of compromise ripples one fool at a time. None of them think their compromise will matter much, which is why they are foolish; if their compromise didn’t matter then it wouldn’t have mattered if they didn’t make that compromise either. It’s not that a cascade of compromise overpowers the honest people of the world, but that a cascade of compromisers is a cascade to suicide. Cascaders hurt themselves. The people who refuse to compromise on truth and morals will remain standing in the end.
Know your values and core principles; never let them go, but let go of everything else before any opportunity for compromise comes knocking on your door. Know your mission—what it is and what it is not. Know who you are and know who you belong to. Then you will surely stand and last.