Hashtag Vegetarian Problems

The path I have so far taken in life has affected everything about the way I think, as I'm sure is the case with everyone. One of the huge things that changed the way I think is being a vegetarian. It changed the obvious things, like how I look at food, nutrition, vitamins, health, fitness, animals, big business, chain restaurants, etc. But it also had a butterfly affect on other things that come with being a vegetarian such as debate skills, research abilities, reading people, psychological analyses, anger levels, self-awareness, etc. 

One of the most annoying things that happens to vegetarians is that you are opened up to every person's opinion on vegetarianism and they are almost all the same, so you literally have to have the same debate hundreds of times before you just become that angry vegetarian that yells at meat eaters or you just quit altogether. I've become a pretty good example because I feel like all I do is yell at people about stuff that I'm sure they should know and I feel like I've talked to so many people about the same stuff that it must be somewhere close to 7 billion people and yet noobs (shoobies) just keep coming along!

Seriously though. Besides transforming my health in a great way, I have really learned to argue with so many types of people. My goal as a vegetarian is to help as many people as possible do the same thing. We may all be only one person but one person at a time adds up and before you know it we are raising the percent of the world who makes better choices for themselves and the environment. With learning how to argue, I had to really know what I was talking about. I was already pretty good with computers and google at a young age but I got so much better when I had so many things I needed to learn about and the power to do it at my fingertips. My job now involves research and I am the best at my company thanks to those years of learning how to back my argument. I can type fast, weed out the b-crap, and use Boolean Logic and varying word structures that help you find what you want to know rather than what the mass media is posting. For instance, when it comes to things like vegetarianism, I find it’s good to look in the scholarly articles section to verify any facts you think you know. I mean you’d think it’s pretty obvious that you won’t die without meat since there are so many vegetarians and vegans alive today, but hey having a scientist back you up and a research paper to cite is always a plus.

In this web of things I’ve learned, I learned to read people from the previously mentioned arguments. I wondered why so many people had the same questions and why they actually wanted to know the answers. Or if they didn’t want to know the answer, why did they ask? For instance, one annoying thing people like to point out is that plants have to die for my food so I should care about that too. Well if that person actually cared about something dying in order to become food, why would they eat both plants and animals? The answer is, they don’t care. They just want to mess with you and throw their hands up to say well if you have to kill something either way then I may as well do both without distinguishing between the two. I started searching for the root of most of the arguments since they almost never end in “hmm wow now that you’ve given thorough evidence against all of my reservations I’ll be vegetarian now.” It turns out, meat eaters are offended, sometimes on a subconscious level, by vegetarians. It’s an inner guilt where they feel like I am better than them because I have more self control and make better decisions so the only way to feel better is to put me down and be glad they aren’t like me. Meat eaters will search for any small thing that “bails” them out of having to consider a different way of life.  Having realized this, it helps me become less angry about people coming up with the same argument. Sometimes I even let them be “right.” I mean does it really matter? In some cases yes, in others no. Don't let people spread ignorance but they can keep it to themselves all they want. I can't wait until there's a way to hammer information into someone's head, but until then..

I think getting rid of anger was an important improvement I learned in my journey. Not so much “getting rid” of an emotion but learning to control emotions has helped so much. I came to the realization that being mad at someone isn’t going to do anything to them. It won’t do anything in fact except make you sit around wasting a negative emotion on your surroundings and possibly negatively affecting the people in your vicinity. Being sad was my main emotion since I was always a sensitive kid. I realized that, same as anger, being sad doesn’t actually do anything, crying does help since it releases some built up tension or emotion, but just moping around is a waste of life! I slowly and then quickly realized that every emotion except happiness and everything related to being happy is totally worthless. Why not wake up and be positive? It’s not to say that being optimistic will make you right, but being negative won’t make you right either so why not pick the emotion that makes you happier? So rather than saying ughhh I’m totally going to do bad on the test tomorrow, ughhh I’m probably going to forget that formula, ughhh there’s not enough time to read and do HW?! Why not be positive, study as hard as possible and internalize some constructive criticism that you can apply to next time? If there’s nothing you can do to change it, you have to embrace it. I can’t even imagine how much time I wasted complaining about how hard something was, what grade I would need to get in order to get an A in the class, how mean the teacher was, etc. Did any of that get me a better grade? No it got me less study time. I think this is a logical issue that people don’t get, perhaps because of emotions getting into the way.. A good quote to summarize this goes something like, resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

A related topic is getting rid of worry. Worrying about bills won't get your bills paid. Also, worrying about death is useless. It is definitely important to do your part in preventing death, eat right, exercise, stay out of dangerous situations and always be as safe as you can. Worrying about death is another thing. Do people really think worrying about the end of the world is going to stop it from happening? Doubtfully, they are just wasting life and emotions on a pointless topic. If an asteroid were going to hit the earth, it would take about a second between the time you first see it and the time impact occurs. So that is only a second that you might have to know that the world is going to end, and then it's over. There is nothing you can do about that. You will just have to wait and see what happens after life, if anything at all. I guess hope you don't turn into a dairy cow!

Last but not least, and most importantly in fact, is self-awareness. At a semi-young age I had a moment where a person walked by me and I realized they had a life and a family and their own thoughts and worries that were totally void of me, I realized I’m not the star of the show, the center of the universe, I am pretty much not important at all (except to me).  With my new found ability to evaluate the motivations of the people around me, I noticed that a lot of adults did not have this sense of awareness about the fact that you and your problems are not shared by everyone or anyone for that matter. A lot of young people turned out to be that way also. I wondered at first, is it something that happens in time or for some people does it never happen? Does it happen to some people and then they forget when they get older? Were all the stupid adults smart kids at some point and there’s no hope for us? I do have a theory that alcohol plays an important role in getting rid of certain important things we've learned but that's another topic. I can’t tell anyone the answer since I didn’t know those adults when they were kids and since I’ve been paying attention I have seen few young people make the transition, most I have seen are much later than I had and at a slower pace. My point being, I think it was sped along by the fact that I was constantly thinking about the plight of another, another species, but still not myself. Then it was only a matter of time before I started realizing that everyone needs help and I’m a lucky b. I don’t waste food because I think of all the people who don’t have that luxury and it makes me so sad to see people waste meat since it’s a life they’re throwing away like it means nothing. I think it's silly to be "grateful" for menial things when you should be grateful to have been born where you were so that you have the privilege to be free, and to have all your basic needs met. Even homeless people in the US have it good compared to some people in other countries. You don't walk down the streets of most places and have to worry about whether you'll be kidnapped and sold into slavery or gang raped, yea be grateful for that. The best analogy I came up with to get across how I feel is my alien example. If an alien race took over the Earth, we would probably be ants to them, maybe cows or dogs, who knows. The point is, we would be primitive animals that don’t speak the same language. Well let’s say that race now decides humans taste good and they decide to start harvesting us for food. In this scenario you can apply anything that humans do to animals and figure out how you’d feel about it and how you can expect the animals feel about it. For instance, when it comes to factory farming, and the stupid argument that is “we need to eat cows or else they’d go extinct,” would you rather live your life as you live it now and then one day an alien comes to your door and kills you and eats you? (hunting), would you rather live in an institution where you are treated nicely, given food and water and freedom for the most part, then one day you get killed and eaten? (family farming) or would you rather live in a holocaust like concentration camp with no personal space, no sun, minimum amount of low quality food and water and live in misery until the day that you and everyone else around you is slaughtered and eaten? (factory farming). That’s obviously rhetorical..  If this was the fate of the human race, would you rather we all continued living like this forever or would it be better to go extinct? Another question from this same topic, if your friend was killed and turned into food and then the alien didn’t like how your friend tasted so they threw him away, how would that feel? Like a wasted life? Or probably if your one of those denial type people you’d say it’s better since you don’t want your friend to get eaten but come on, let’s be real, at least if you could serve the purpose you were killed for and not be killed for the landfill that would be better right? Anyway, putting myself in other peoples shoes is what I got good at and now I am much more aware about how I act, what I do, what others do, etc. and I think it’s a happier life or at least healthier mentally and physically.

I think it's important to remember all of these lessons, where they came from, how they developed because it helps spawn new things and also you can apply it to new things you learn. My dad always said he felt his best parenting came from remembering his childhood. Rather than coming up with what kids should do as it's convenient for parents, he would think from both angles and then make a decision. Hopefully this blog will help me do that.

Sweet Life

My little brother just left after staying with my husband and I for 3 weeks. It is sad and has been causing a lot of reflection for the both of us. Reflection on how much fun we had, what we said, what we forgot to say, what we did, what we didn't do, what all of this means for the future and of course who actually cares? I have a habit of making all young boys and girls around me into my little brothers and sisters and trying to educate them and help them with life so I am always thinking about what that advice should contain and what is the best method of delivery.

The main "issue" we were faced with that I really haven't had to address before (except in myself) is laziness. That is not to say that I don't know lazy teens or lazy humans for that matter, it was just different for my brother. He had at some point come to the realization that he was unmotivated to do many things and rather than try to remedy it, he came up with saying "that's too much work" anytime he felt the feeling. So for example, if he lost his phone and I suggested calling the restaurant, movie theater and mall we were just at he would respond with "that's too much work." So essentially he would be willing to give up his phone in order to avoid having to do these tasks.

In other people I would say I've seen more of a tendency to either make excuses or false promises. So another person might say "yea I'll do that" and never actually get around to it, or maybe "no, I remember having it in the car so it couldn't be at those places." Both methods still get you out of doing the arduous task but without having to admit that you just don't feel like doing any extra work to retrieve the phone.

It's weird because that's not the only vice he admitted to that he was totally fine with having. I guess it's weird because I am all about self improvement and if I did a self evaluation and found that I had some personality trait that was affecting life productivity I would start work right away on reversing it. That's not to say that I don't have any traits like that, I just haven't found them yet or I am not doing very well with eliminating them. Like for instance, I have heard that I am self righteous from a few people.. I don't see it, yes I am very opinionated and do believe I am right a lot. I don't however see how actually being right makes you self-righteous. This is because I am always open to change and don't stick to things just because I think I know or my mom told me so or whatever, I try to base everything I know on facts and research. So if someone comes along and says I should start eating meat because I need protein but without anything to back that up and I say nooooo, I will not and that is not true, does that make me self-righteous? I can give several sources on why my opinion is "better" because it is based on facts, not just because it's coming from me and I'm more awesome (truuu). Anyway, I digress, the point is I do try harder to make sure that I am not acting self-righteous to avoid the vice but my brother does not care, he embraces himself just the way he is (and/or how he was molded by the rents).

So the whole point of this (see why I feel bad for my husband?) is the thinking that came along with this notion. I have always thought this about mother's, especially young mother's that give excuses as to why their kids are not healthy. The thought being you have one life, maybe more if you count kids, and all you actually have to do in life is sustain. If you are just you (not a parent) you have to eat, sleep, breathe, etc. So if you have irregular breathing, it's important to remedy that and increase oxygen so your brain and muscles, etc. can work better; if you have trouble sleeping, you have to fix that to improve your mood and productivity, etc.; if you are not eating healthy, fix that! Your body won't feel good unless you put good stuff in it, there is no getting around this one. If you are not walking right and feeling joint pain or even just seeing that your shoes are wearing in a weird way, please fix this, you need to walk. The issue here being that there are SO many people who, if presented with the information that they are not chewing enough to properly process their food, they will come up with some reason why they are too busy to accomplish this, or they don't care, or that they do actually chew enough but just that one time there was a reason they chewed poorly, etc. Do people actually think that by giving some excuse for their deficiency, that will make them less deficient? You are only cheating yourself with these things..

Onto parents, lets say you have more than one life to take care of. So same deal with the eating and sleeping, etc. Now tell me how it takes more time to feed your kids healthy food than crap? Tell me how they will only eat chicken nuggets, how did they get introduced to those? Also, since when did kids become an authority on what they eat and do. Please let's admit this is a result of laziness. It is too hard, or too much work, or takes too much time to do this correctly. If you are eating healthy, it's a small extension of work to add a few more meals for the kids. I would assume that you have the ability to pay enough attention to the other details and to be able to give advice or supplies (e.g. shoes) to improve the other aspects of their lives. Now let's go to excuse number two (after time) moniesss. So I think that not eating healthy for money is the biggest crock ever. Maybe for some people in extreme conditions this may have a small amount of truth but I'll get to that in a sec. So I'll assume you are a normal person, anywhere above living off of food stamps. I have heard SO many parents say they wish they could shop at a farmer's market or buy organic or blah blah blah but I don't have any money for that. Then you look at the food they have/buy and they throw away tons of perishables because they buy things no one eats, they have tons of processed foods which are more expensive than unprocessed foods, they have candies, chocolates, and other "kid" foods (why would kids need these?), etc. So one thing I know from when I was very very poor, to the point where we could barely afford to eat AND pay the rent, is that you don't eat that shiat when you're poor. We even had to feed our cat leftover spaghetti and potatoes that we got for free from the restaurant my husband worked at. You buy rice, dry beans, cheap fruits and vegetables, maybe a protein source. You accept ANY food that is offered to you, always take and eat leftovers, and you really learn how to make something good out of not much. One of our staples at some point was corn tortilla quesadillas filled with american cheese and the salsa my husband brought home. The point being, I have not seen any of these parents that I hear complaining living like this. They just have a constant feeling of poorness that they can't shake and it makes them justify cutting corners to save money but at the same time buying a new handbag or Starbucks drinks for insert excuse. So when we decided to get healthy in this state of poorness, what we realized is that we buy too much food. Sure buying corn tortillas and american cheese in bulk is cheaper, but we don't need all that food to make it to the next paycheck, also, we didn't need to have 20 of them per day to reach our calorie needs. So we started buying and eating less. If you buy one head of organic broccoli for your one meal instead of 4 unorganic ones for possible future meals that may or may not happen, it's actually cheaper. On top of that, if you buy all of your fruits and veggies from a farmer's market, the farmer will generally give you a break on the already pretty low price to the point where it ends up being cheaper than the grocery store. That depends on where you live of course, here in San Diego my "egg guy" will give me 3 dozen organic, free range eggs for $5, way cheaper than even the unorganic eggs at the grocery store so why wouldn't I buy from him? So we started doing this in Florida, going to the farmers market and getting just the veggies that we knew we would eat and only in small portions, it turned out to be way cheaper. We fashioned healthier, delicious meals out of a 50lb bag of rice, a bag of dry beans and whatever veggies we got from the market and were already feeling better. After I got a job and we started making more money, we could increase the amount and variety of food we got to include tofu and eggs and random things like peanut butter and coconut oil. All while still being on (and only working up to) a combined salary of one average american. Ahhh, back to parents. Your kids do not eat something until you make it happen, don't make candy, ice cream, chicken nuggets and macaroni happen, make vegetables happen! The crazy thing about humans is that anything can become delicious if you're really hungry. If kids won't drink anything but soda, but they don't have any soda, it's only a matter of time before water starts looking pretty good. If they only eat chicken nuggets but they have broccoli in front of them, how many meals do you think they would be willing to skip before they'd eat the freaking broccoli? Well I'm sure it's easier to never find out but sorry what was the pressing issue that was so much more important than your childs nutrition, which will by the way affect their lives in the future for a very long time, depending on how long you let that go on for.. Here's another thing, tell me what a kid can be doing (besides the basics) that is more important than learning. There is no reason why a kid shouldn't be studying, doing homework, reading books, etc. even when they don't want to. No matter how much it appeases them to get out of that now, it will make life so much harder for them down the line. Hopefully this point is showing through to be that you, as a parent, are the ruler of your kids life to a certain age. You are in charge of teaching them to be good humans, keeping them healthy and alive in general. There is no excuse not to do this correctly. Besides your own life, what is more important? The Bachelorette or some other brain draining nonsense on the talking box? Maybe take a step back and evaluate where your time is going, there may be a lot you'll find is being wasted on staring at the wall or drinking, etc.

So as for addressing the uber poor. First off they probably aren't reading this. Second, look up a week of food around the world. You'll see that american's have all kinds of money and eat like poo but poor countries focus on the basics and eat much healthier than richer people. So if you're on food stamps, this is the kind of food you get stamps for, even some farmer's markets are accepting food stamps now in order to give poor people access to better food. Also, just because your food stamps cover frozen pizza doesn't mean you have to eat that.. If you are homeless and living on the streets well I guess this doesn't apply to your current state since you don't get much of a choice in your diet. I'm sure there are other people this applies to but ya know, I always have had a back up plan for possibly being homeless one day and it includes finding out what I can eat and gather from the land and trying to find a great place to "camp" but for a more long term thing. That's idealizing that but I guess if you care about your health that's the kind of stuff you might consider?

I think the mind gets in the way of acting correctly a lot. We make excuses because we want to be awesome and rather than admit to being wrong and moving forward, we cling to the past and pretend it's good. We get offended if someone proposes that something we are doing is wrong even if and especially we know it. We lie to ourselves even to make everything OK and to create the least amount of work possible. We are lazy, why do you have to take the trash out later? You're being lazy. Why do you have to take the car to the shop tomorrow? Laziness. Why are you a diabetic eating sugar? Too lazy to change. Why do you drown your problems with alcohol? They are too hard to fix and you're too lazy to do anything about them anyway. Why are you still unhappy when your own happiness is completely in your control (or why haven't you seen a doctor if it's not)? You are being lazy and don't want to deal with the effort (large or small) that it takes to do that. Just get your arse up, it will feel good, not painful. Eventually you'll feel so much better you'll wonder how you ever lived in such a cloud of procrastination and lounging holding you down. Stop getting angry that someone points this out and just fix it or own up to it.

So to make a short story long, I've come up with a new adage I hope to live by.

You have one life and all you have to do in this life is live so why not do it right?