During this Christmas holiday I am reminded of the wise, time-honored lesson “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Christmas is meant to be a time of compassion, “peace on earth”, and good will towards others. Having sympathy for the suffering of others, and caring enough to want to help them is a quality we should all strive for. Not just at Christmas time. All the time.
Unfortunately, compassion is not the norm in our society. Recently there was a tragic (although thankfully uncommon) example of the bitter fruits of selfishness. On Black Friday (the first major day of Christmas shopping) Jdimytai Damour, an employee of Wal-Mart in Long Island, was trampled to death when hundreds of people barged into the store as it opened the doors for a sale. We can only imagine the sadness his family must be going through, but sometimes it takes tragedy to invoke our compassionate nature.
While it may not be as “newsworthy” as a Wal-Mart stampede, every day, countless innocent animals are subjected to horrifying living conditions, followed by an unimaginably cruel death, simply because eating meat is the norm in our society. When we become aware of the extreme pain and suffering caused to these billions of innocent creatures, hopefully we will have the insight to ask ourselves, “Why shouldn’t we extend our compassion to all living beings, not just humans?” We must then consider whether the tradition, habit, status quo, or that tingle on the taste buds is really enough to justify this utter lack of compassion for animals.
It’s not just the animals raised for food that suffer immensely, but eating meat also brings intense suffering to individuals and society in the form of greatly increased levels of disease and environmental devastation.
Be Good to Yourself
How can you experience peace if you don’t treat your body right? Not only is there no need to eat animals to live a strong and healthy life, a meat-based diet greatly increases your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a host of other diseases. Transitioning to a plant-based diet is the single most important step you can take to improve your health and well-being.
Be Good to the Environment
How will you find peace if you don’t treat the Earth (which sustains all of our needs) with the respect she deserves? Many leading environmental organizations, including the National Audubon Society, the WorldWatch Institute, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, have recognized that raising animals for food damages the environment more than just about anything else that we do. Choosing a vegetarian diet is the single most important thing you can do for the environment because you will no longer be contributing to the havoc being wreaked on the Earth by raising animals for food (whether it's the overuse of resources, unchecked water or air pollution, or soil erosion, etc.).
Be Good to the Innocent Animals
Each year in the United States, approximately ten billion animals are raised and slaughtered for human consumption. Given the suffering these animals endure, and that all our nutritional needs can easily be satisfied without eating these animals, vegetarianism requires a very serious consideration. The fact is that eating animals is unnecessary because nature has provided ample vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes and dairy products for human sustenance. Therefore, the slaughter of animals for food is a luxury rather than a necessity and is morally wrong.
I submit for your consideration that a vegetarian lifestyle awakens our spirit of compassion and guides us towards a kinder, gentler society in which we exercise a moral choice to protect animals—not exploit them.
While “peace on earth” may be a pretty tall order, we can bring peace and compassion into our own lives and the lives of those around us. This Christmas, why not be good to yourself, be good to the environment, and be good to the innocent animals? Add more compassion and peace to your life by choosing a vegetarian diet.