The third way to avoid being a hypocrite is what all of us basically good people do: we lower our standards. Rather than proclaim a way of life which we know we can't achieve, we justify our shortcomings. All we aim to be is basically good people. We do whatever wrong we do, but we tell ourselves that, since we're still basically good, it can't be that wrong. We try to be pragmatic: For example, since very few of us can claim to live perfectly sexually moral lives, and since we hate the thought of being labeled hypocrites, we lower the standard from sacred covenant to simple consent. Or, since very few of us are perfectly honest about all things, we tell ourselves "little white lies" aren't so bad.
Yes, perfection is to be our standard, not compromise, even as we ever fall short. We are all called to holiness and witness to perfection, a la Christifideles Laici:
Despite every difficulty, delay and contradiction caused by the limits of human nature, by sin and by the Evil One, the Church knows that all the forces that humanity employs for communion and participation find a full response in the intervention of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of man and of the world.
Yes, the intervention of Jesus Christ, amen. That others become more holy than I, provided that I become as holy as I should be, may Jesus give me the grace to desire it.
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