Nobody is Perfect

Nobody is Perfect

When deciding to do a public blog/vlog one thing that worried me, particularly with the decision to put vegan in the title was society's obsession with perfection. I've heard different things falling under this same umbrella from both vegans and non-vegans so I wanted to use one of my first entries to address this and get it out of the way.

Since transitioning to vegan I have heard a lot of comments that boil down to things a long the lines of, “you can't make a difference”, “if you can't save every animal why bother?” , “well ____ still happens”. Similarly in vegan online communities I've seen many steps and actions labeled as not vegan enough. All of these share one central sentiment which is basically, if you can't be perfect why bother?

I no doubt, will from time to time go some place, use something, say something or do something that some might consider, not vegan enough, not pure vegan, whatever you want to call it. I don't know when, where or how it will happen, but it will. If being present online has taught me anything its that everything piss off someone. I am sure this will happen not because I am careless but because I am human and imperfect. This will happen because while people want to paint the world as black and white, its actually gray.

So why bother? Well, the best answer I can give is a parable I heard as a child, perhaps you have heard it too, it is about a little boy and some star fish and goes like this :

One morning a man is going for a walk on the beach, every morning the beach is scattered with starfish that the tide washed up. As he walks he sees a little boy who is running about picking up star fish and throwing them back into the sea. The man approaches the boy and says “Boy, why are you wasting your time trying to save these star fish you cannot possibly save them all.” T he little boy continues what he is doing while saying to the man “You are right I cannot save them all, but I can save this one” he says throwing the star fish back into the sea.

What the moral of this story is, to me. Is that every positive step counts. No you can never be perfect and no you cant save them all, but just one is worth it, every step counts. So everyday my goal is to do a little more, be a little better, and cause the least amount of harm possible while existing in our imperfectly gray world.