Convictions

Today--my fourth of ten days raw--was not difficult, per se, but I wavered in my conviction of doing the project (or cleanse, whatever you want to call it). I worked an eight-hour shift, and the food at work smelled and looked a lot more appetizing than the chard and guacamole wrap that I'd brought for lunch. Don't get me wrong, I love guacamole, but the potato chips and the roasted portobellos were calling my name so much, that I turned to a co-worker and said, "Would it defeat the purpose of the raw period if I had raw all the time at home, but had (cooked) sandwiches while I was at work?" He looked at me and said, "Yes, of course it would. You're the one always telling me about willpower, why quit now?" And he's right, of course. It was my choice to do the raw thing, and I will do the full ten days of it, possibly having some cooked food on Friday night, but not before.

Of course, that got me thinking more about choice and commitment and how those are ways of acting upon knowledge/the acknowledged. I acknowledge that eating raw for a stretch of time is incredibly good for my body and mind, partially because it allows me to have a break from caffeine and alcohol. (There are also practical reasons for doing it: the CSA baskets this time of the year are almost all leafy greens and salad mix; because Matt is out of town, this means that I have the task of eating all of them on my own--and what better way to do it than raw?) So, if I acknowledge the benefits (finishing the CSA basket, cleansing and feeling better, experimenting with new ways of raw food preparation), I can see how choosing raw has a positive impact on my ten days. In a more extensive way, I can acknowledge the positive impact that veganism--my veganism--has, and I know that it is a choice that I make on a daily basis. I choose to be vegan. As Matt once said, "It wouldn't be so much of an issue if meat didn't taste good." But to most people, it does, and it is certainly more convenient to be an omnivore--and therefore, being vegan isn't a simple preference, but a conviction, a commitment, a choice.

I had to write all of this out because I recently found out that one of our friends who was vegetarian isn't so anymore. And when I found out, it bothered me--and it took me a while to figure out why. This person is someone with rather strong convictions, and it was just so strange to hear that he had abandoned them! It was a choice made for whatever reasons, but a choice made in direct opposition to the previous acknowledgements of the harms enacted by the meat industry.

I'm tired. It has been a long, long day, so I will close with these words form the first chapter of Cafe Gratitude's Dessert Cookbook Sweet Gratitude. I came across this book completely by accident today, but the words resonated with me, and so:

Our choices are not isolated incidents, they are powerful decisions that create a ripple effect on the rest of the world. What we choose now sooner or later has a direct impact, not just on ourselves, but on many others and the whole planet. Sometimes what we choose is influenced by habit or what makes us comfortable. To step into our power of choice is to be consciously aware of why we are making a choice and to be present to its impact

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