Today is my four-year vegan anniversary!
I started “going vegan” around the holidays in 2007, and then made it official as my New Year’s resolution for 2008. I remember making that resolution, writing about it in my Livejournal, thinking that I was setting myself up for failure. As it turns out, going vegan is not difficult, and all of the positive energy felt as a result of living vegan is addictive. I can’t imagine ever going back to eating animal products for any reason.
Four years ago, I could have never predicted how going vegan would seriously impact my life, ideas about the world, personal politics, etc. Going vegan doesn’t just change your eating habits — it provides this whole new lens through which to view consumption cycles in general. For me, it was this way of stringing together all of these pent-up confusions I’d been feeling as a teenager about consumption, materialism, corporations, social injustice, etc, then acting against those frustrations on a daily basis. Not to mention how much better you feel physically and how much more energy you have. For years before I went vegan I was sort of neurotic about food and health and calories. Going vegan made everything simpler and I think I am a calmer person as a result. After I went vegan, I felt like this huge burden was lifted, physically and mentally.
I try to not be militant and preachy about other people’s eating habits buut once you understand veganism it is hard to watch the people you love continue to partake in unhealthy and unjust consumption cycles. My sister and I bug our parents a lot to stop eating animal products but it is only because we love them. Since I care about mostly all of you, might I make a suggestion for 2k12? If any of y’all are trying to come up with a New Year’s resolution, go vegan, you’ll feel better about everything.
Gonna go celebrate by making dinner with a buncha my favorite veganz in Boston. <3
