I’m writing today after my usual scroll through social media. After seeing images and articles of helpless animals trapped in cages, stuffed into trucks, and sent to slaughter, I realized that being vegan is extremely exhausting.

But it’s not for the reason you might think.

I’m exhausted, not because of what I eat, but because of everyone around me. My family, my friends, and almost everyone else, all contributing to the mass murder and abuse of billions of animals every year (not counting the trillions of fish caught and killed every year). It’s exhausting to see how much pain and suffering they’re causing, not really caring about their food or cosmetics, or how they got there. And when you try to discuss it with them? The plethora of reasons for not going vegan pile on. “But we’ve always eaten meat!” “Those animals were born to be food!” and the ever so popular, “Plants have feelings, too!” are just some of the excuses we get (if you need more, check out Veganspeak’s “The Complete Vegan Arguments Guide”). After hearing these, we almost lose all hope in humanity, and wonder why people try so hard to find excuses to not quit meat, instead of just thinking a bit about what we’re trying to explain. No matter how many myths we destroy, it seems as though everyone is still stuck in their ways. Even those who claim to be “progressive”.

All we want is to put an end to the animal abuse going on. Is that too much to ask? So many people claim to love animals and be against animal abuse, but if we point out that they’re contributing to it, they become defensive. We’re surrounded by this, by animal agriculture, animal testing, animal entertainment, etc. etc, and it feels as though we can’t do anything about it. The same people who want to see a progressive and liberal world not only do nothing to end the torture and imprisonment of trillions of animals, but pay for it and try to defend their actions, telling us what we’re doing is wrong. We start to feel alone. This “revelation” of seeing what’s behind the mask of the animal industries should be a blessing, yet it feels more like a curse. We should feel lucky to have been able to stop ourselves from contributing to what’s happening, yet we feel heartbroken, and drained from seeing others do just that. We want to be positive, but sometimes, things just seem bleak and hopeless. Even though we know things are slowly getting better… we want them better now.

Funny thing is, the easiest part about a vegan’s lifestyle is the variety of food and other products we have available to us. But the most difficult is dealing with the realities of animal exploitation around the world, and the fact that almost everyone we know is contributing to them.