It is often a difficult task to recall the exact details of a moment or period from our past. No matter how desperately we go in search of lost time, we seem to seek for shadows that disappear when we attempt to shine light on them.
What I can remember of my process of going vegan is that it was an intense, but short, period of reflection on the ethics of what I was eating. As someone who had cared about animals since my youngest days, it had always made sense to me that harming animals was wrong…though I still ate them. I finally realized that the consumption of any animal products, not just meat (I was vegetarian at the time), would or could produce unnecessary suffering. No living being wants to suffer; therefore, causing unnecessary suffering was indefensible.
I made the decision to go vegan on March 6th, 1999, shortly before my spring break as a college sophomore and a week before my twentieth birthday. Afterward, I missed yogurt for a few days, but otherwise there was no anguish or regret for me, nor has there ever been in the ensuing years.
My thirty-fifth birthday is a week away. While the fact that I am in my mid-thirties is still a strange thing to process, that “birthday” seems fairly trivial in comparison to my fifteenth veganniversary. So forget about the birthday celebrations, please…I have never liked them anyway. It feels much more significant for me to commemorate the day I made a conscious choice to live my life, and to relate to the world, based on an ethical principle of ahimsa, or “non-harm.”
Please help me celebrate my fifteenth veganniversary! It is easy to do: just go vegan. Today.
If you need motivation and support, it can be helpful to watch something informative about veganism, such as Vegucated (available on Netflix), and find a good vegan food blog, such as Oh She Glows, and maybe pick up a cool vegan cookbook or two (from the plethora that have been published). You can even join a vegan community online or a vegan Meetup group in your area, or you can take a vegan challenge. You are also welcome to get in touch with me if you have questions or need some direct guidance. I am happy to do it. Whatever it takes for you, please help me celebrate a life that is not fueled by torture, suffering, and death.
It really is not as challenging as it might seem before you do it. One day very soon you will understand this, too. And just imagine what it will feel like, fifteen years from now, when you reflect back on the choice you made long ago to end your role in the system of suffering…
Today is a perfect day to start the journey.
Striving with Systems 