I’ve gone months without eating meat, includes chicken. But yesterday, I failed. Yesterday I wasn’t strong. The feeling of failure is very unkind. A part of me was taken by weakness. I’ve failed 😦

How hard should I be on myself? I let my desire overwhelm me. Has my journey for my fury friend been difficult? F* yes! I love meat, all meat. I’ve always been a beer and BBQ kind of girl. I  love veggies and I’ve never been big seafood person. Meat was for dinner EVERYDAY.

Healthy living is important to me. It seems like since I stopped eating meat I’ve gained weight. More foods are fried. I think I’m so hungry I load up with carbs to fill me. I have to watch what and how much I eat more now than before. Strange huh? I eat a lot of veggies but that seems to be not enough.  It’s been a few months now and I’ve trained my stomach . I’m doing much better as far as what to eat and how to cook it.  I really don’t eat like I use too. I can’t eat rice like I use too either and boy I love rice!

Why take this journey?

Simple. Animal cruelty. I’m not gonna lecture and make anyone feel bad. We choose our battles in life and do what makes us happy. With a growing population, we need to force breed in massive amounts. Which means more steroids, more crop to grow, more water used and more of the environment we abuse. Humans are smart, so therefore we are on top of the food chain and we eat EVERYTHING. Did I say I wasn’t going to lecture? LOL This is nothing, TRUST me!

Here are a couple of links to some information if you’re interested.

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/

http://www.thevegetariansite.com/env_animalfarming.htm

http://www.sustainabletable.org/265/environment

Is failure inevitable? 

I think so. How else would we get better, improve? If all our wants and dreams were simple to obtain, it wouldn’t be very exciting. You want to live an exciting life don’t you? I do. Even though failing is disappointing, I know there’s a reason for it. We need to learn and move forward. Experiences, emotions…that’s what being alive is all about. Love, lost, happiness, despair, success and failure.  There are good and bad choices. Right and wrong ways. Compassion and selfish behavior. It’s life.

I take pride in being a good person. I take pride in making a difference. I always try to be a better person. My choices in life are to benefit the people  I care for, the less fortunate, those who can’t speak for themselves (like animals), the earth…whatever is in my power I will try to do. One day we will not be here. When they day comes, what will you leave behind? What will be said at your funeral? How much will you be missed? How many lives have you changed? You should live your life with these thoughts in mind. They are important. Live in a way that makes YOU proud of yourself. It wouldn’t hurt if others were proud of you as well.

I am my own worst critic.

I’m not perfect, none of us are. But we ALL can do better, be better. As for me, since I fell off the cliff,  I’ll have to start over again. The only problem is I still want chicken! I use to LOVE  steaks and all kinds of pork. But now I don’t have a problem turning that away. It’s just the chicken I’m struggling with. My dilemma is – what if I only buy humane certified chickens? Will that be better? Because I don’t mind that people eat meat, I just hate how it’s processed. I wish more people would stop eating so much meat. We should buy from humane certified farms only but that’s a long shot. It’s a little more expensive.  Not a lot of farmers really care so it’s not available at a lot of stores. Supply and demand? Foster Farm was just recently certified. If more people cared about how inhumane these animals were treated and killed, then maybe more of these horrific factory farms wouldn’t exist. Wal-Mart you suck! <<< gestation crates. Imagine if you couldn’t even turn around. You were stuck in once spot FOREVER 😦

I’m still battling with the chicken…what do you guys think I should do? Help me! 

Remember…looking the other way doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen.  Please care enough to make the world a better place for everyone, every living creature and everything that produces life. Our children will live on and have their own kids. Is that enough reason?

So in closing, I’m not going to beat up myself over this. I try, I’m trying. And that my friends, should be enough…right? It’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get back up that counts. I’m going to continue my journey and probably fail again, and that’s OK. 🙂