Optimism;

My family all eats meat. And it bothers me, so much. I try so hard to comment very little..but they still complain that I bitch about it too much. It hurts. I don't mean to be one of those people who tries to force their opinions on everybody around them - but at the same time, it's not just about me. It's not about me at all. Its the animals that were sacrificed. It's the animals that they are ingesting, without even considering the fact that once upon a time, that was a living, breathing, feeling organism. How can it be ok? How can they live, not giving it a second thought, not even considering that perhaps it's wrong, the fact that we as a people murder millions of animals a day, for the express reason that we like the way they taste? How can so few people care? How can we be so completely desensitized, to the point that, when someone does see a something wrong with it - they are the crazy ones, the fanatics, annoying for fighting against what society just accepts so easily?

It's sick. It is so wrong, that I am considered an idealist, as if it is a bad thing. So horrible that people who believe that everything deserves the right to life are such a minority. And so sad to know that people feel that I am naïve for believing that one day, it will get better. That one day, the world will change. That one day, we will no longer feel the need to murder for food, for pleasure, enjoyment. We won't destroy plants for food, much less animals.

Sometimes, not going to lie - it is so hard for me to remain optimistic, believe that things are going to change for the better one day. I talk to people about the all things I believe in, and it gets so hard to remember all the reasons I hope for the future.

And to be completely truthful - sure; maybe I am crazy. Maybe I'm wrong, and a hundred thousand years from now, we won't have gotten any better. Maybe we will have destroyed ourselves in nuclear war because we couldn't give up the crutch of hatred. But then, I must remind myself - that I need to believe things are going improve, one da everything is going to be beautiful, pure, wholesome. No matter what the reality is, it is so much healthier to believe that somehow, what you're doing is benefiting the world. A world that is changing. A world deserving of the hope we have for it.

So though I may have spent a chunk of my morning crying for people, for all the animals being murdered daily for us monsters to devour... I need to remember that every time I refuse to eat meat, I am saving a life, and I am supporting a movement that I believe in with everything I am. I need to look to the future, and believe that we will get there one day. Because one day, a million years from now or one, we will win. Not me, not you, not one group of people, not even one species, but the whole world. We will finally be able to live in peace and harmony, with everything. There will be no killing, no hatred, and no jealousy, no judgment.

Against any and all odds, I will go on believing.

❤