Making major change

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To be constructive, we need to train our thoughts towards how things could be. I don’t mean ‘feeling lucky’ or wishful thinking or romanticising or being idealistic, I mean looking at the significance of what’s happening when we are about to change. Why would you bother to change if you didn’t think it worth doing, or do it just to relieve guilt?

‘Change’ - we get stuck in the rut of our habits and we might like the idea of change but suspect we don’t have the energy to make it happen, or keep it up.

I look at parents sometimes, their time and energy invested in kids and home and careers. They haven’t got time for change (whereas for someone like me, no family, no long working hours, it’s the opposite). There aren’t enough hours in the day. ‘Change’ isn’t even considered. A radical change of diet, for instance, would seem unrealistic. So, people stay fixed by habit and time constraints. The sorts of changes being suggested (a diet to fit in with animal rights) seem unlikely, especially when it concerns a whole family’s food. But this sort of change is the first essential, if some of the biggest problems facing the world are to be tackled. The violence, shown to the animals we eat, is the same habitual violence which stops the human species from progressing. Non-violence seems the way to go, and it is most clearly embodied in vegan principle.

A lifestyle change, as significant as ‘going vegan’, implies action. It’s urgent. It’s all or nothing. If it’s half hearted it won’t work. Giving up meat alone says nothing about animals (and nothing about non-violence), because their protection isn’t just about not buying meat. There’s as much cruelty involved in using animals for their by-products. That’s why vegans disassociate from all animal-based foods and commodities.

Change - if we set the bar too high or take on too much too quickly, we might fail. If our attempt to change fails, it makes us wary of change. We’re less inclined to do it again, mainly out of fear of giving up too soon. But ‘going vegan’ isn’t like some dalliance with a new hobby. It’s a serious statement. One wouldn’t ‘go back’ because it had been a mistake to ‘go forward’. The principle of veganism is timeless and therefore, if you take up vegan living, you’re likely to be doing it for the rest of your life; there just isn’t enough reason to revert.

Change - the other side to failure-to-change is more positive. So, you fail, but even if it might not work on the first attempt, this one failure could make us even more determined. And then we can push through, and arrive at that place where the change feels solid. That sort of break-through, that completed change, presents a mighty possibility. Here’s our one chance to change everything, at a stroke. Eventually such a strong philosophy, based on vegan principles, must win through and hopefully we with it.