First of all, sorry for my absence. As you will see from reading this there are reasons for why I have not written anything for a while.
1. Vegan Hate
It seems awful to me that there can be any hate towards an individual choosing to be Vegan...but sadly there is a lot of it out there. I did not expect to receive any negative comments, nor did I believe I would read as much negativity as I have yet I can't read anything without there being a section of commentary set out to ruin what being Vegan truly means. If you don't like the thought of loving all sentient beings without causing them harm for consumption, then keep it to yourself.
There is another side to this of course. There are people who try to "force" their opinion on others. I don't agree with forcing anything on anyone and can understand why there is negativity involved in these situations. In my mind, you try to make change the best way you can. This includes sharing as much information as you can, answering as many questions as it takes, maintaining a positive mindset and respecting the opinions you receive in return... which as you will read below can be very hard to do.
2. Not willing to change
I have had countless conversations with people regarding why I chose to change, and answered questions people put forward as best I can with hopes that they might also consider the change. The want to change is almost always there, yet so few people follow through and use reasons such as "I wouldn't know what to eat, so I keep eating meat and dairy"...very frustrating and "I just like the taste too much, I can't stop". I maintain my calm and try to provide as much help as I can but at the same time there is so much information out there, and there are so many diet options that this is laziness and habit in my mind. If you truly put any consideration and care into what goes into producing the animal related products you buy in store, you would not have any issues making the change.
On a side note, if you need to consume animal products but you put effort into it such as hunting your own meat, fishing your own fish and can maintain this lifestyle ethically I am not against that at all. This is not something I could do being Vegan but the biggest issue worldwide is the lack of sustainability and the sheer scale of ongoing cruelty towards sentient beings that is "ignored" by consumers.
3. Fitness Negativity
This could have fallen under Vegan hate, but because fitness is such a huge part of my life I wanted to have a separate section for this.
I put an extreme amount of time into fitness including weightlifting, martial arts, hiking, mountain biking and dirt biking. Because these sports are such a large part of my life I spend a lot of time watching videos and reading about them on social media as this is now the world we live in. This is a large source of the negativity I see out in the world. The fitness industry is highly driven by the use of animal products including dairy, meat and fish as diet is such a massive part of this world. Being Vegan in such an industry is actually easy to do but not easy to share. I have had to remove myself from several groups solely based on how much hate people are willing to put out just because someone is trying to promote being Vegan. As soon as there is any mention of cruelty things turn ugly. On the positive side of this, there are more and more products being released everyday that are Vegan...keep it going!
I don't personally know anybody that would cruelly harm a sentient being just for consumption, yet by buying any such products you are supporting that very cause of harm. - This statement albeit true is definitely a trigger for many people and I understand why. I think of how much harm I contributed to after over 36 years of meat and dairy. So when I get frustrated, I take myself back to these times when I ignored the mass cruelty and try my best to reset my train of thought...nobody is perfect but everybody is capable of change.
So as you can see, regardless of how hard I work to maintain a positive mindset, I constantly find myself struggling with the balance of wanting to make a change and at the same time wanting to shut down and keep to myself. Nothing has ever impacted my mental health more than being Vegan for going on 2 years and yet nothing has ever made me feel as connected to the earth as I do now.
Enjoying the whales and ocean, Vancouver Island 2020.