Consistent ethics

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Most people think that we can only be effective if we have specialist knowledge, but what expertise is needed to know that the animal business is wrong and to know to keep well clear of it? When something isn’t right we know it in our gut, it comes from intuition and inborn values. A familiar comment from new vegans is, “Why didn’t I see it before?”
From my own experience, as soon as I tap into instinct, things become clearer, and then I’m more likely to gravitate towards ‘the greater good’... only because it seems so obvious. What counts, I think, is optimism and faith and you can’t sustain much of that if you are hanging around the gates of the abattoir, figuratively speaking. Following convention without questioning it, eating food which we haven’t examined ethically, doesn’t bode well for the future.
When any of us choose not to buy something that we may want, and we stop ourselves for ethical reasons, we make an important statement. We say, for instance with animal food, that we can’t eat what shouldn’t even exist - namely foods associated with animals.
By setting an example in one field but not in another equally important field, we lose credibility. It’s the same problem we have in any advancement, whether it’s our career, lifestyle, relationships or spiritual progress. By neglecting any one vital issue, simply because it doesn’t suit our convenience, we introduce too much incompleteness into our life, and that surely leads to double standards.
In the end, if we can’t muster sufficient personal power to change any faulty parts of our own daily existence, then we have less personal authority ... without which we can’t fight corruption or change the system we live in.