I go to vegan forums occasionally to find quotes, get ideas, and to satisfy my morbid curiosity. The first thread I clicked on today was called “Vegan. Two Years. Awww yeah.” In it, the two-year-strong vegan who created the thread announces to everyone: “I had Buddhist Chinese buffet and chocolate cake with mango gelato in celebration! Best decision of my life.”

I don’t know if he means the vegan Chinese buffet was the best decision of his life, or going vegan was, but it did entertain (and disturb) me to find someone making that kind of proclamation a few days after writing about it.

I’m not sure if I was able to really articulate in that entry why I think that “best decision of my life” is such a weird thing to say about going vegan. One thing that strikes me as funny now is how word-for-word it is. Every time I’ve seen a vegan say that becoming vegan was the best thing they have ever done, it always seems to include the exact wording “best decision of my life.” Why not “I’ve never done anything better than give up all animal products”?

Also interesting to me was the reaction in the forum. Everyone said something like “Congrats!” — treating veganism as a personal accomplishment rather than something done for the benefit of the rest of the world. Shouldn’t they be saying “Thanks!” instead?