Starting the ball rolling can be self-benefitting too

1648: 

The criticism of both young and older people, for their indulgent lifestyle, seems partially true but partially misplaced. Older people might argue that the trouble with the world today is young people’s profligacy. The young, in turn, argue that the World’s troubles have been caused by older people. Each is passing the buck.

For me, as a cyclist, I blame the car driver. For me as a wage slave I blame the rich. And so on. But really it’s a whole complex of issues that rise to the surface and we feel impotent to change anything because we are part of the collective mind-set. We drive cars and we fly in planes that pollute our world. What can any individual do to stop it apart from not driving or flying? In today’s world how can we NOT take part, without disadvantaging ourselves? I know if I tighten my belt and act responsibly I’ll feel resentment that others aren’t doing likewise.

Perhaps the one way each of us can get started (doing the right thing) is by acting constructively whilst avoiding resentment. We can take a stand without making a rod for our own backs. We can do something for the greater good which also happens to benefit ourselves. 

This brings us back to the need to save the environment, our health, the animals, the economy and our own sense of meaningfulness all at the same time, simply by going vegan.

By not exploiting animals, by eating plant-based foods and by wearing non-animal clothing and shoes, we do something to make us and our world feel better. It helps pay back the debt we’ve collectively run up. By boycotting very many of the products on the market (which are unethical) we can affect the collective lifestyle habit even though we might see not much evidence of our effect. And that might appeal to young people who don’t see how, otherwise, they can be constructive with their own lives. They almost certainly do want to build a future. They almost certainly don’t have to go along with the ruin inherited from their elders.

By going vegan, young people can show, by this one major gesture, how individual action can start the ball rolling.