How-To Not Be Perfect and Be Vegan

Let's face it... once you've been vegan for awhile, you've likely been subjected to an utterly useless conversation with someone attempting to nitpick everything from the source materials of components in your laptop, to bugs accidentally splatting on your windshield as reasons why we can never truly be completely vegan.

Being vegan isn't about being perfect. Veganism is about doing the least harm possible to the best of our abilities. And this isn't the same for everyone, since we all lead different lives in different places with different options. We can all strive for an ideal, but no one of us is perfect.

I was reminded about this subject today while reading 5 Life Traps Surfers Should Avoid on The Inertia. The first piece of advice is not to let surfing rule your life. Some folks say the same about veganism, occasionally straying from veganism where it is convenient to them. But respecting life is not about convenience. And neither is surfing. If you want the best waves, sometimes that means getting up at 5am and driving 2 hours before you'd normally get up so you can still make it to work on time... maybe. And maybe remaining vegan at work means spending extra time in the morning packing your own lunch for that employee appreciation barbecue. How does that saying go? If it's important, we find a way. If it's not, we find excuses.

Both surfing (or bodyboarding and swimming for me) and veganism are lifestyles. Both are concerned with ocean conservancy, the environment, and health. But veganism originates from a moral imperative. I can reluctantly set the ocean aside and do other things, but I can never simply set my vegan morals aside. I feel both internally and externally obligated to cause the least harm possible to all tenants of our world. Once you understand and embrace a vegan lifestyle, you can never go back.

There are other parallels from the article I enjoyed, such as "Don't try to be a surfer." Don't try to be a vegan? This is getting too Yoda... Do or do not, there is no try. Often people new to veganism end up accidentally buying food with whey, or a leather belt, and they become discouraged. Just get up the next day having learned from your experience and make better choices at the next opportunity!

Don't pull back. Really. Don't go back to being vegetarian or flexitarian or pescetarian (what do those terms even mean anyway besides "sort of" caring about a select bunch of animals). Go vegan, stay vegan, and if you need help along the way there are millions of people out there willing to offer support and advice.

Avoiding social media is probably not good advice for a new vegan. It is one of the best ways to find information and encouragement. It is also the best way to feel inadequate. Your dinners don't need to be Zagat-rated museum-worthy creations, your activism needn't contain gruesome slaughterhouse images, and you don't have to live off the grid in a solar-powered yurt to live a green lifestyle.

Do the best you can. Read. Learn new things. Compete only with yourself. You'll never be perfect, and that's okay. That's not what it's all about.