Thursday, May 14, 2009

My New Challenge

I watched a horrible video last week, called "Earthlings" that was narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, about how humans treat animals - and the video is limited to those in the USA. I was appalled, and I cried through most of the video. The definition of Earthlings is "an inhabitant of Earth." Meaning, all creatures are earthlings. Cats, dogs, humans, cows, chickens... they all inhabit Earth.

Since watching that video, I have not looked at anything the same way. I see a cow in a pasture and think, "poor, poor cow." I look at my puppy Bauer and just think, how can someone purposely hurt a dog?! I mean, how can you?! Beating it, not feeding it, doing research on it, inhumanely killing it... I don't understand how humans think because we're bigger and smarter, we have the "right" to physically harm another. And that goes for other humans as well as animals.

Ellen DeGeneres is a huge animal rights activist, and she helps financially as well as in her daily life - she adopts animals that were abused, and she has become a vegan. Now, I do not have the financial capacity that Ellen does, and I can't start bringing in so many dog and cats until we have the capacity for it - for instance, if Ryan and I move to an acreage, I might be able to bring more dogs into our lives. But until then, we just physically and financially cannot.

So I have to start small, and in our means.

Step 1: become a vegetarian. I considered veganism, but I don't think I can do that. A "vegan" is a vegetarian who omits all animal products from the diet. That means eggs, fish, milk products, etc. I already drink soy milk, but cheese, eggs and yogurt would be pretty hard to keep out of my diet. So... I'm starting off with vegetarianism.

Yikes.

I'm nervous, and anxious. I am excited to be doing my part in this world. I am nervous to tell people... Ryan's family are meat producers, and both families are meat eaters. This is going to inconvenience people. I'll have to buy veggie burgers and keep boxes at each place so I have something to eat!

So my blog is no longer going to focus on my depression and sadness. I might still talk about it... I mourn Matthew everyday and I still cry almost daily. But all I can do is move forward and make changes in my life to make myself and my body better and healthier for the next child I am blessed with. And have faith in God that He really does have a plan, even if I don't understand at all what it is.

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