Do I Have to Change My Life? Yes, Kind Of, But That's a Good Thing

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-07-01 14:41:00 UTC
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Somehow, when I was putting together the recent roundups, I accidentally looked past a post that I knew I wanted to share the moment it was published over a week ago. Ryan of Veg Blog recently received--and shared--an e-mail from a Saudi reader asking some questions about going vegan or vegetarian. Included in his response to the reader was the following bit of thoughtfulness:

Now, let me start with what I see to be the key question here, one that I sums up the trepidation a lot of people have about going veg: “Do I have to change my entire life?” The answer, in short, is yes. For the change to be meaningful and lasting, I think going veg does have to feel like a life-changing experience.

However.

The problem isn’t changing your life. If you spend your entire day kicking babies and one day you decide to stop, that’s a life-changing event, but it’s not one that should feel like deprivation. It’s a change in your life that’s positive, one that that you can embrace and feel good about. And that’s what going veg should be. If you focus on all of the things that you’re “giving up,” it’s going to feel like a sacrifice, like you’re missing out on something. What you’re doing is making a declaration about what it is and isn’t OK to eat, wear, and use. One thing I’ve noticed is that meat is no longer a food to me. I would no sooner eat a piece of chicken off of someone’s plate than I would eat their napkin. It’s just not food.

Ryan went on to offer some supportive insights about the process of going vegan as well, but I'll let you read all that over at the original post.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user Iaian Alexander

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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