When I postponed the vegetarian/vegan challenge, I said I’d give a little wrap up post about whether I learned anything, or changed etc.
Most of this has probably been covered in other posts. I’ll jump in with things that might be new information.
1) I think in total between the two veggie challenges, I did about two meatless months. People said that was long enough that I might get sick introducing meat back into my diet, and I should perhaps go slowly.
I did not go slowly. I ravenously ate a lot of meat for every meal for the first few days back. I had a humongous cheeseburger for lunch the day I postponed the challenge. For dinner, I ate everything at Outback Steakhouse. (That may be a slight exaggeration…)
I did not get sick one it.
2) The challenge did slightly affect me. Other than that first week of crazy, I slowed down on meat in general. For instance, I generally get veggie toppings on pizza now. In small ways, I’ve been cutting down on the meat, but not cutting it out.
Onto the stuff that’s probably been touched on before:
I know that being a vegetarian is better for the environment. I know it. But, come on! I don’t own a car! If I ever rend one, I try to go for a small car with great gas mileage. I have reusable grocery bags!
(I know these are just justifications to myself, but seriously, are we not allowed to have some things that bring us joy while still trying to be a pretty responsible citizen of Earth?)
When I first got the email offering to let me do the challenge for six months to raise more money for my charity, I really struggled with what to do.
It was funny because a friend of mine quipped, “Don’t do it. The money’s not even going to you.” In my mind, the only reason I was considering it was because it would be going straight to the charity. There’s no way it’d be worth it to me to get an extra $50/week for myself!
Of course, this is ridiculous reasoning because if one were to have an extra $50/week, one could choose to give it to charity. But something about it being set aside charity made it seem different and therefore worth it (barely).
Then, I struggled a lot as you saw in my big complain-y post. Thankfully I got that email pardoning me from the challenge for up to five years. (If I don’t complete it sometime within that time frame, I have to pay the money back to the donor. The way things are now, it looks like that is what I’ll do, but we’ll see…)
I really did struggle a lot with whether to postpone the challenge. I truly am a crazy, stubborn human being. But, I just felt that my main job this year was to do the distance events, and try to (usually) show the joy in them. I needed my brain and my body to work for me.
I was a bit disappointed in myself for quitting, ’cause generally, I am not a quitter. But, I’m trying to find the line between pushing myself to do things, and blindly following rules I set for myself if things change.
Things shouldn’t make you wildly unhappy unless you can see a reward on the other side of that misery. Of course, there was a big reward in the sense of charity money. So, what makes me happy. and what price can I put on happiness? Those are bigger questions than this post…
I’ll pick up here concluding this conclusion tomorrow (not addressing the open-ended questions of the last paragraph).