A Beautiful Path Part 2: Choice And Connection

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." 

- J. Krishnamurti

Continued From: A Beautiful Path Part 1: Suffering And Selfishness:

Remember the victim of my story? You know, poor little Sarah Marie and all of her suffering? I lied, Nay, I was oblivious! I really had gone my whole entire life thinking of myself. Not just in a purposely selfish manner, or in the way that we think our reality is the truth, but I was oblivious to how my life and my choices could effect others. I didn't know that everything I do has the capacity to change the life of not only myself, but others in this world. I didn't even realize that my choices were not only causing a lot of my suffering, but that my choices were causing the suffering of others too.

Around this time last year, if we spoke, you would have heard me, the victim of my circumstances and star of my story, explaining my recent diet changes to you on a regular basis. Shortly after I decided to make my diet changes, to go whole food plant-based a full time decision rather than a thirty day trial-run, I spent a lot of time explaining this choice to people.

This was understandable, I had made a huge, drastic, overnight change in my life that the people in my life were now noticing for one reason or another. It may have been the conversations at work when I didn't partake in the breakfast pizza and chose a fruit and veggie smoothie instead or with family when I started bringing my own dish to our get togethers. No matter the place of the conversation, the conversation was generally the same. I would start out with a disclosure of some sort, something to the effect of "I changed my diet for health purposes" or "Im not saying it is for everyone" and I would follow this up with a glimpse into my personal story and how changing my diet has been life changing for me. Again, selfish Sarah Marie was all about me, me, me.

I started to go out to eat more and more often as I got used to eating new things and being satiated without animal products such as meats and cheeses at each meal. On not one, but what seemed like a million different occasions I would start to order my food and realize that no server has time or wants to hear "Excuse me sir or ma'am, Im eating only whole food plant based, so I cannot have meat, dairy, eggs blah blah blah in my food" so I started starving at restaurants and eating a lot of damn salads or veggies without butter. I realized this would all be a lot easier if I started saying Vegan.  But uh, thats for Hipsters and Hippies right? (Sarcasm heavily implied) I am different, I chose this diet and lifestyle change for my health and my wellness (again with the sarcasm).

Eventually I started saying Vegan because it was easier for me. If you are paying attention you are noticing the common theme here, everything is still seemingly about me.

Now that I used the word vegan in public my eating habits at restaurants had become much more fun, I tried new things and was able to quickly and more easily order my food without bringing too much attention to what I was doing. Things were going along just fine.

I continued to talk about my new food choices, heck, I even started to break down the walls and have conversations with friends and family about how wonderful my new diet changes have made me feel. I felt energized, I slept like a baby, was in a habitually great mood, and just overall felt wonderful. I felt like I made a really compelling argument, for those who knew how miserable I was before, as to why this diet change may help others feel better in their lives too. At this point in my transition I was still honestly not sure of how long I would "keep this up" or how long I could really "give up" so many kinds of food that I loved. I still left what I will call my "connection room". Room to change my mind, if you will. 

When discussing my lifestyle and diet changes I often left room in the conversation to add eggs back in one day or to possibly eat cheese again. I thought to myself and often explained to others that since I changed everything so drastically overnight that I was not sure which products were really the culprit of my years of suffering. I thought that as long as I don't swear them off publicly or hold anyone accountable for choosing to eat those things I could potentially, and eventually add them back into my diet. I was terrified of failure and terrified of being accused of being a hypocrite. 

There is so much wrong with the before thought process that its hard to even divulge. I literally thought so much of what other people think that I was scared to say bad things about eating eggs or cheese for fear that if I failed to exclude them forever that I would be publicly shamed for not being good enough. This fear helped keep me from moving forward. 

I still wanted that connection room in my life to make other choices that suited my needs. I wanted to have room to make my own personal choices regarding what foods are most convenient for me. For example what if I were on a road trip and needed fast food? what if all they had were eggs for breakfast at a cafe everyone else was going to, what about the times when you've had one too many adult beverages and "just need to eat something for the love of god"? I also wanted to leave room in case I chose to eat the foods I traditionally ate on holidays such as turkey on Thanksgiving and Prime Rib on Christmas day. To make matters more complicated, I had a trip to Europe coming up, have you ever dreamed of traveling out in the world and thought about all the amazing foods that you were going to try? I had too! I desperately needed this connection room, so that I could still choose what I wanted to eat, when and if I decided to. (Spoiler Alert: I ate compassionately during all holidays and vacations.)

I would like to say I came to a revelation one day and that everything just sort of lit up in my mind and I knew what to do, however that is not how it happened. I continued on my whole food plant based lifestyle, occasionally using the word Vegan at restaurants to make things snappy, and keeping that connection room safely alongside me just in case I needed to choose something different. Over the next few months I started thinking about the animals. I even had a huge plot (that never came to fruition) when I went to Ireland, that I was going to hug a sheep. I started thinking about how my food choices effect others, not just myself. I began to sort of take this "saving animals" side effect as a bonus under my belt, because although I made my changes for my health reasons, I too was effecting the lives of animals by my choices. 

I don't know about you, but selfish Sarah Marie likes to know all about the good things she does and not the bad, so I wanted to learn a bit about the good that my food choices were doing for the animals (albeit not completely unselfishly). I again started in with the documentaries, articles, websites, and youtube.

As you may have guessed, a profound change occurred, I saw the absolute horror of the enslavement and slaughter that is Animal Agriculture today. For the first time I faced that, in no uncertain terms, my morals and ethics do not align with the "choices" I have been making. 

I realized that as a child I was never really given a choice to begin with, and as an adult we are sheltered, conditioned and cultivated to act, think, and feel in a certain way about our food "choices". I also realized that as an adult I had never made the choice to research where my food came from. It dawned on me that my choice to consume, wear, purchase, own, or exploit another living being is not a choice at all. They never had a choice in the matter. It became clear to me that the way we are taught from a very early age is to perceive one being differently than another, this is evident in racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and all of the other ways we look to our differences rather than our similarities. We are taught that it is okay to harm certain types of animals (or beings) and not others, for an example love your dogs and cats but kill the pigs and cows, cry over a gorilla killed in a zoo but murder a pig for the taste, save the whales but kill the chickens. I finally awakened to the fact that all animal products are stolen from living beings that never gave consent, that never wanted to be used, abused, exploited, and murdered for us.

The final straw, so to speak, the line in the sand for me was watching a documentary called Earthlings. This film documents the many ways in which humans display speciesism. Speciesism is the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals. It taught me about the stories and lives of animals being used and exploited as pets, for entertainment, food, clothing, and scientific research. I cannot begin to explain to you what happened inside of me as I watched this. I broke down, and I don't think Ive fully gotten back up yet. It has taken a lot of time to fully process what I learned and what I wish I had known all along. I am desperately sorry that I had unknowingly participated in this cruelty for so long. 

What finally happened was clear. I had closed the gap between what I was conditioned to believe and what I know now, between what I thought an animal lover was and who an animal lover really is, between what is my personal choice and the choice of another being choosing to live, between my personal suffering and the suffering I was causing, between what is food and what is the flesh of an animal that didn't want to die, between what is clothing and what is the skin or fur of an animal who was tortured and slaughtered in order to be adorned on a human's body instead, between arguing against veganism and arguing for animal abuse, between a whole food plant based diet and a vegan lifestyle, between what I was "giving up" and what was Never Mine to begin with, between that path I was on and the Beautiful Path I am on now. 

My "connection room" has been closed. I have made the connection and there is no more space between what I know in my heart and how I choose to live. 

I am vegan for life, for the animals, for the environment, for health, love and peace. 

"The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." - Albert Schweitzer