Myth #82: “But I can’t make a difference.”
The only time you truly make no difference is when you choose to do nothing because you believe you can’t make a difference. And it is indeed far better to have lived a life at least trying to do some Good, as opposed to giving up without trying at all … Besides, you alone going vegan will make a difference. Indeed, every single person that goes vegan saves at least 20,000 galleons of potable water every month … Every single person who goes vegan saves over 3600 square feet of forestland from being razed every month … Every single person who goes vegan removes 750 pounds of greenhouse gases from our atmosphere every month … Every single person who goes vegan frees up over 300 pounds of grain for the hungry every month … And every single person who goes vegan ensures the greater health & the longer lives of all the Loved Ones for whom they care.
Even more importantly, each & every person who decides to go vegan directly saves the lives and prevents the torture of roughly 300 animals every following year (maybe a bit more or maybe a bit less, of course, depending on how much or how little meat & dairy one consumed prior to going vegan). Yes, this number might not make that much difference when compared to the billions of animals unnecessarily suffering today, and yet it will literally make the world of difference to those hundreds of animals you do save!
Finally, and most importantly of all, if you do decide to become vegan and start leading a courageously compassionate life, there is actually a good chance that you can become a far more powerful Force for that Good than you might currently believe. For when we take a closer look at all the other great social justice movements in our recent history — Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement in the United States, Mahatma Gandhi’s national autonomy movement in India, Nelson Mandela’s freedom from apartheid movement in South Africa (and on & on & on) — we find that it is never larger groups of like-minded advocates for justice that bring about positive reform. Instead, it is actually smaller, dedicated groups of individuals — individuals often standing seemingly “alone in the storm” — who have done so …
Well, the storm of animal abuse & animal cruelty is currently raging, my Friends. And fortunately there is already a dedicated, small group of vegans standing boldly within it — standing & demanding freedom for those enslaved; standing & demanding justice for those persecuted; standing & demanding peace for those being maimed & murdered … We are still a relatively small group, I will admit, and yet we are a group of great Power; the Power that comes to all those brave enough to stand on the Right side of any social wrong.
We are a group that is growing larger every day, and we are a group that has more than enough room for you … Consider yourself invited.
Current status of this Myth: Upbraided
Justification it provides for eating animals: NONE
“No man ever made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do little … Every time I sit down to eat, I cast my lot for mercy, and against misery. Every time I sit down to eat, I speak up for the oppressed, and against the oppressor. Every time I sit down to eat, I vote for compassion, and against cruelty … There is so much suffering in the world, and yet every single day I can – at the very least — remove my personal share of that pain and replace it with peace; remove my personal share of that cruelty and replace it with justice; remove my personal share of that callous indifference and replace it with compassion.” ~ inspired by Edmund Burke & Bruce Friedrich
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