Educate Yourself

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "ignorance is bliss." When I went off on my own to college at 16 years old, I felt like I was being forced to grow up much faster than my peers back at high school. During this time, when I no longer was surrounded by people my age every day, I started to realize that ignorance wasn't going to get me anywhere in life, and that educating myself was the most empowering thing I could do to achieve my goals. This was when I really started questioning society and the world around me. This is what really led to my decision of becoming a vegan.

I love researching just about any topic that sparks my interest, so I researched a lot about vegetarianism, and then veganism, when I decided to change my lifestyle. One thing that I found most interesting about my research, was when I was with a family member and saw them eating, say, a hot dog, and I would ask them if they knew what was in it. They would immediately say something like, "No! Don't tell me, I don't want to know!" This was most interesting to me because I used to think the exact same thing! What is it about us as humans that make us want to be ignorant about the things that affect us in our every day lives? With food in particular, why would we want to eat things that we know are made of ingredients that are ironically unappetizing? Why do we choose to ignore the facts without questioning our role in the situation first? I saw the same ignorance to food in my family's reactions that I am trying to escape every day.

Educating yourself can be extremely empowering, especially when you find something the majority of society believes in, and you realize that it might just be ignorance and dismissal of the facts that keep us from making a difference. Often times I even question if social media is good for our health? Or if we should really be eating foods that we know are bad for us, such as chocolate cake? It is easy for us to be ignorant to the fact that we may be better off as a society if we only stepped away from the things that we all secretly know aren't good for us, just because they bring us pleasure. I think it really all comes down to perspective, and though I am not ready to give up vegan chocolate cake anytime soon, it definitely is something to think about.

CW

Educate yourself! Learn how hot dogs are really made (the phrase "meat batter" makes me cringe!):