Advice to a young person considering their eating habits

May 22, 2015 by Joshua
in Habits, Nonjudgment, Tips

I wrote the following to someone who was looking for arguments on eating habits, wanting arguments not to eat meat but liking the taste and convenience.

On one side you’re looking for logical arguments but on the other side you have taste, pleasure, and convenience.

No logical argument can counter your feelings of pleasure or convenience.

Your issue is your own internal conflict: you have a gut feeling you’re doing something you disagree with but you can’t stop yourself, at least that’s how I read what you wrote. Nobody else’s morality or ethics changes that as long as you don’t resolve this internal conflict, you’ll feel uncomfortable with yourself. Asking others to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do won’t relieve that conflict.

If I were you I would look at your own sense of right and wrong and compare it to your own desire for pleasure and convenience and find the right balance for yourself, not ask other people to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. I went through that struggle when I was a couple years older than you and haven’t eaten meat since (that was 1990) and I feel great about my eating habits. Other people go through that struggle, become hunters, and feel great too. Only you have your particular sense of right, wrong, convenience, pleasure, budget, etc, so only you can figure out your behavior. Also only you know how much internal conflict you’re comfortable with.

In short, what behavior do you think is right for yourself? How much of that behavior are you willing to sacrifice to gain pleasure and convenience and whatever other considerations factor in before your conflict bothers you? When you’ve answered those questions, you’ve found what’s right for you at the time. As you change your behavior you’ll learn, which will lead you to adjust that balance.

The alternative is an unexamined life. The phrase “the unexamined life is not worth living” has stood the test of time for a reason.

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