Thankful For Vegans
To anyone who has made the commitment to be vegan, thank you! Becoming vegan is a deep, life-changing shift that is not always easy, but which is always worth doing. And at this point it is easier than ever due to so many resources being available to help people learn and change.
Thank you to vegans who take a stand and make changes in their lives to protect and care for the vulnerable, specifically - animals.
It may be easier in some respects to go along with our currently predominantly meat-eating world, but vegans know there is a better way, a more conscious way. Vegans live it themselves and want to share it with others.
How beautiful to want to share a way of life that eliminates unnecessary suffering of sensitive, feeling creatures who deserve our respect, protection, and not abuse.
How thoughtful it is to wish other humans would love and nurture themselves with more healthful, plant-based choices in their diets.
Such good stewardship it is to care enough for the environment to take responsibility and change one's habits rather than pointing fingers at corporations, nations, or politics when it is the choices we individuals make every day that fuel these larger organizations and their destructive practices.
How admirable it is to take the time and energy to look courageously at all these issues and CHANGE OURSELVES because of the truths we learn.
In a world that can seem rife with unkind people and actions, vegans are a soothing balm on our collective soul. Veganism is kindness, love, and respect in action.
To every vegan who has been ridiculed or ostracized for promoting decent, honorable ideas like kindness towards animals, better health for humans, and a cleaner planet for us all, thank you for being vegan. Despite the difficulties encountered at times, please carry on.
Thank you to vegans for taking the time to educate yourselves on the truth, to be willing to see that truth even if it is unpleasant. Many people would rather live in willful ignorance than admit that animals are horribly and unnecessarily abused in the farming system. Many people refuse to understand that eating animals is harmful to human health. Many will not believe that farming animals is an environmental catastrophe. Hence some of the most ridiculous excuses ever contrived for maintaining current behavior, which, if it were not so serious a situation, would be seriously laughable.
Vegans face these harsh truths and work to change them, to make things better. Thank you.
Gratitude goes to vegans who initially thought when they went vegan that their friends and family would also be eager to make this important shift; after all, the facts are so compelling, who would not want to change immediately upon hearing them? As it turns out, a lot of people don't want to hear, don't want to change.
Thank you to every vegan who has suffered the bewildering, heartbreaking disappointment of watching people we know to be otherwise caring and intelligent people revert to some of the most flimsy and nonsensical excuses for continuing to harm and eat animals. Thank you, vegans, for your ongoing efforts to hopefully help resistant people one day see that they, too, can be vegan and stop contributing to so much harm and destruction.
Vegans are continually working to explain to people who are defensive about their carnist choices, whose defense mechanisms render them suspicious and even hateful of veganism, that veganism is a healthy, delicious way to eat, and that the vegan lifestyle is a comfortable, ethical way of living.
Dear vegans, please keep being vegan. Every day more people are choosing this compassionate, rational way of life. One fine day humanity as a whole will catch up with the idea that being vegan is good on every level.
If you are vegan, thank you. If you are not yet vegan, please join us. Learn to go vegan here.
To read stories of people who have successfully gone vegan, and why they did, please visit Vegancouragement.
Image Credits:
Siggy Nowak
JudaM
VanessaWN
Alexas Fotos