How To Go Vegan Without Really Trying (A Life Map)...

Be born. This is really the most significant part and you can take comfort in knowing that if you’re reading this, the biggest task is already behind you. You’ve got this!

Be raised in any number of homes and environments. Meaning you may grow up as the child of hippies or hunters or business people or politicians or schoolteachers. You will grow up in a rural community, the suburbs or a city. Believe it or not, you don’t need to be raised on a commune or by parents who met during an Earth First! tree-sit to grow up to be vegan. It really doesn’t matter. You will still eventually go vegan.

Grow up eating “normal” food for your family. In our house, it was macaroni and cheese from the blue box, scrambled eggs, Lipton Ring-O-Noodle chicken soup, turkey and cheese sandwiches, my grandmother’s brisket, hot dogs, Fudgsicles. Guess what: I grew up liking those things and this still did not stand in the way of me letting them go. Today – spoiler alert! – I’m a vegan. You might grow up eating Greek food, Italian food, junk food, whatever. You might hate vegetables. You will be pleased to learn that it need not interfere with your eventual veganism. Phew! You may even learn to love vegetables. (Or you won’t.)

Your books almost all feature animals. Tenacious rabbits, clever foxes, irrepressible pigs, maternal hens, endearing crocodiles and more are well represented. Many of your toys are stuffed animals, some of your favorite songs are about animals and when you draw, you often draw animals. You are taught that kindness to animals is a virtue and cruelty to animals is immoral. Despite all of this, you will grow up eating them, probably without even really being aware of it. 

You may or may not have a household animal or two growing up. You may or may not make a connection to this animal that may or may not hasten your eventual veganism.

You will go to school or be home-schooled. You will play. You will have lots of friends or not too many. You will be very social or not very social or sometimes social. You will learn your ABCs, how to tie your shoes, simple addition and to not put paste in your hair. No matter your education, you will probably not learn much about the animals you eat.

You will grow up loving nature or not loving it. You will spend your time outside climbing trees or inside looking at books or riding your bike or your best friend’s house or or the beach or the library. No matter your experiences, you will still grow up to be vegan, so that's a relief.

You will feel a deep affection for other animals or you will not feel this or you will feel this for some but not others. No matter your affection or lack of affection for animals, this will not necessarily have a bearing on your evolution to veganism.

At some point you will become an adult. Maybe you’re already vegan.

Over time, you will become an outspoken liberal or be a staunch conservative or be moderate or an anarchist or completely apolitical. You will be an atheist, of faith, agnostic, spiritual or skeptical. You will date males or females or both or neither. Whatever! Who cares? You’re still going vegan. 

At some point in your life span, you will have an epiphany or you’ll just connect the dots and then you will go vegan. You will make the change overnight or it will be gradual. You will have an influential friend or you will read something or hear something or watch something that makes a deep impression on you or maybe your roommate is a great vegan chef or your doctor says something to you. You will go vegan for life or else you’ll quit and you’ll return to it maybe more than once before it sticks. 

It will be the best decision that you ever made. 

The end.