Why being vegan is like climbing a mountain

Today, December 11th, marks International Mountain Day.

While being vegan and hiking up mountainsides might seem like two fundamentally different tasks, they share a few key characteristics in common with each other, chief among them struggle and the grit to persist, no matter how steep the slope, no matter how comforting abandoning one’s foremost ambitions can sometimes feel.

But we must remember that life is a journey riddled with both love and heartbreak, peace and chaos, struggle and achievement despite it all. The harder we fight to build a vegan world, the sooner such a world can come into existence. Yet this lofty goal, likely decades in the future, can often seem so unattainable and our efforts thereto so futile; “How can I as a lone individual to remedy all the ills in this world?,” you might ponder quietly to yourself, wondering whether the latest animal rights rally you are attending will have any real-world impact whatsoever.

Like many mountain climbers, however, we need not trek these perilous slopes, gaping gorges, and potential avalanches all by our lonesome; instead, we can come together as a community to collectively free ourselves from the bonds of servitude that have defined for too long who has power, privilege, and prestige and who doesn’t. Indeed, it would be a suicide mission to try to summit perilous slopes like those of Mount Everest without at least one or two additional helpers. The fact we must all struggle together to beat seemingly impossible odds only further underlines the importance of embracing a collectivist lifestance, one in which we all respectfully acknowledge the fundamental interconnectedness of all life on Earth, including those connections we maintain (for better or for worse) with other human animals.

We should also remember that the slow, steady course is often the easiest, most reliable and consistent way to achieve our goals. Just as one would seriously struggle to go from an inveterate coach potato of 20 years to an ultra-marathoner who wins the London Marathon with record speeds, we should never demand more of ourselves than what we can reasonably expect. Instead, we should focus on setting just one small new habit we would like cultivate in our lives, everything from putting the lid back on the toothpaste to vowing to never again smoke lung-damaging, cancer-inducing cigarettes.

Thus, it is extremely important that we set small, manageable goals that help us chip away, day by day, piece by piece, the choking edifices of racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism, and speciesism that so constrain us, that so warp our perceptions, numb our feelings, and all too often render us complicit in the oppression of others.

On this Wednesday, December 11th, we should remind ourselves that we need not achieve perfection overnight; indeed, it is doubtful any such perfection ever could be achieved. Instead, we should focus on a series of small, simple, doable goals that bring us just one step closer to the vegan world we not only so longingly crave, but all so rightfully deserve. Every day can bring you closer not only to your ideal self, but to the ideal world millions of social justice advocates continue to fight for, to suffer for, and to even to die for.

Now, let’s follow the gently curving trail up the mountain, moving only as quickly as we can sustain for several at a time; we have far too much to accomplish to allow any mountain to impede our progress, no matter how massive, no matter how intimidating, no mater how disempowering such obstacles might, on the surface, feel.

We have a world to save. Will you join us as we trek up the mountain?