All About Little Fuddha
I’ve spent my whole life comfortable with the love and compassion that I showed to all animals. I had cats, dogs, fish and rabbits, fed or helped stray animals when I saw them, and enjoyed learning about the animals in zoos and on farms. I had no desire to personally kill or harm an animal. That made me a true animal lover, right? The thing I didn’t realize, is that there was a huge disconnect between the love I showed these animals, and my decision to eat meat on a regular basis. I had always thought, “they have already been killed by the time I eat them, so it would be useless to waste what is available to me”.
I had heard the argument for living a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle and had never really connected with it. I would say that my connection began slowly, unintentionally exposing myself to information and content about people choosing to live a plant-based lifestyle. I would watch YouTube videos of people showing what vegan foods they had eaten for the day and how they navigated around birthday parties or road trips. As I became more drawn to these videos and began intentionally seeking them out, I started watching their reasons for choosing this vegan lifestyle over that of eating meat.
Looking back, I was becoming less judgmental by the day, and it was only at that point that I think this next thing would have impacted me as much as it did. In the middle of a late night YouTube binge, I ran into a video titled "The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear – Gary Yourofsky". It was long. I turned my head at parts, scoffed at others, muted the sound and cried multiple times. I began to understand the cruelty that surrounds the meat and dairy industries, the health effects that society seems to ignore, and the very real fact that each of those animals feels pain, fear and depression just to ultimately be put on a plate that I probably won’t finish.
My heart was heavy and as I looked up at my then fiancée (because what good is a YouTube binge if you aren’t laying on the floor), I could see the wheels turning in her head too. I’m a firm believer in sleeping on it. It gives your mind time to work, and there is something so sobering about waking up the next morning and realizing that yesterday wasn’t a dream, that whatever you encountered will be a reality for the rest of your life. I went to work the next day, mentioned the video I watched to a couple of my friends, thought about it some more, and by the end of the night, as we drove home from a doctor appointment, I was crying to my fiancée. I couldn’t support these industries anymore, I couldn’t take part in the pain and abuse I had witnessed. She simply said that we should give this vegan thing a try…and that was it. We dove in head first, made a couple mistakes here and there (milk is in things you wouldn’t expect!!) and never looked back. Sometimes it’s hard, but I am proud of my decision every single day (our cats were the first ones we told).
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