Free-will

Growing up develops our reasons and justifications for what we do but we live in a world that is already set up, and there’s disillusionment about aspects of that world. We seem locked into the existing system as well as the patterns we’ve carried across into adulthood from our younger years. Maybe we want to make changes without too much personal loss. One of the most precious things we have is our free will and we protect it. As we become adults we get closer and closer to being able to exercise it. We start to earn serious money which enables us to enjoy all the adult privileges. We can now drive so we can go out and buy a car (if we have the money), we’re old enough to get involved in politics because we have a vote, we go to bed late, use mind altering substances, eat what we like, dress how we like, etc. From having been locked in childhood, now, with free will, we have our get-out-of-jail-free card. There are temptations galore when we come of age. We can determine things our own way. But on a grander scale we discover that we can’t change the world. There’s a mixture of elation and frustration. The real sea change we intend comes at a cost and many of us are unwilling to pay. However, vegans suggest the price is small and the transformation great for those with enough imagination to use their free will constructively. Unfortunately free-will can hold us back and vegans know all too well that they are up against adults who use free will to maintain the only pleasures they know.
Free willed adults can eat what they want to eat and don’t have to listen to either their mothers or vegans. If we as vegans try to push our views too hard we’ll fail. We already have a reputation for telling others what to do and we fail because we don’t take into account the free-will of people. Omnivores are determined to protect their ‘right-to-choose’, whilst vegans are determined to convince everyone they should be acting for the ‘greater good’ and not out of self interest.
But we have no special dispensation to put pressure on people to change diets, clothes, cosmetics, etc. and we have no right to try. But more importantly we have no chance of succeeding when we don’t take into account people’s freedom to act in any (legal) way they want to.