The Question that Drives me Hazy.

I have in my life remained stagnant; part of the reason is that I didn't move forward  was because I didn't know exactly who I was or what I believed. I searched for my beliefs in books, in friends, in family, everywhere I could. I made many mistakes along the way, correcting course many times over when I found myself in error. 

Only now do I really feel like I'm starting to discover who I really am, or maybe I always knew, perhaps I've been guiding myself all along. Or have been guided by an internal operating system whose job it was to separate the new and useful beliefs and ideas from those that were junk. 

Regardless, who I am is more clear to me now than ever before. However I'm not there just yet, because a new question, a new conundrum has presented itself to me like a fork in the road where the sign has become worn and illegible from age. 

Is what I've become to believe right? Or is it wrong?

Is what I believe proper conviction or confusion? 

Faithfulness or fanaticism? 

Where do my beliefs stand on the spectrum? 

I ask myself this because I've noticed in my dealings with other human beings that no one really ever asks themselves this question. Well maybe some do, but I've already shown you prime examples of people who obviously fail to look at themselves, and what they believe, critically. 

I don't want to do that, I don't want what I believe to become out of control, I don't want to be a fanatic. I want what I believe to be a source of goodness, of strength, and I want to use my conviction to help others. Before I can do that though I need to know that I'm not infected with the unique (or not so unique) insanity that so many are.

How can anyone be certain, I mean truly certain, that what they believe and what they do because of it is right? How can I know that I won't take a step too far and do something that ends up being against the grain of my very being?

Did you know that Einstein was one of the driving forces behind the beginnings of the Manhattan Project? Einstein was a staunch pacifist, but with Hitlers rise to power in Germany and the threat of Nazi development of the Atom bomb looming, Einstein shed his pacifism to encourage the United States to develop the bomb first. Before his death though Einstein admitted to a long time friend, "I made one great mistake in my life — when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification — the danger that the Germans would make them..."

Without Einstein's interference, the Manhattan Project might never have come to be, and the Allies could have lost the war. Despite this Einstein still greatly regretted what he had done, about how he had to substitute his most closely held belief of non violence for a belief that helped to kill so many people.  

It's not stupid to compare the choices I will ultimately need to make with what Einstein faced, one day what I decide could very well determine the fate of another human being or the lives of many people. 

Or perhaps I'm being overly critical myself, or maybe everyone else simply isn't critical enough., more likely it's a mixture of both. That is why I wish Einstein was alive right now so I could ask him a question,  a question that sometime drives me hazy; am I or the others crazy?