Ivana Atmojo

Today I’m celebrating my 2nd anniversary of my being a vegetarian. Yay!!! It was in London, on the 3rd of November 2005 when I had that moment and decided to be a vegetarian for life.

I was working on my MBA coursework in my tiny room in London with the telly on. After working for hours I really felt starved. I wasn’t really in the mood of cooking, so I just opened my fridge and started digging into my favourite mouth-watering fat-free strawberry Muller yoghurt while standing up and watching the telly.

There in the BBC I saw an African doe (female deer). She was soooooo beautiful that I was mesmerised for a couple of seconds. Her pair of doe eyes were the most divine I had ever seen. Her eyes sparkled with innocence like nothing that ever existed before, with both hint of hope & sadness. Strangely, I felt as if she was saying: “Why are you doing this to me?”, as if she knew that her days of life could never be safe and sound; and that it was only in a matter of days that she would die being hunted, shot,& killed by us human beans. My heart suddenly beat faster, and I felt an emotion so strong that my eyes were watery ( I told you I could be like waterworks sometimes).

But that was my ‘moment’. I said to myself: “This is it! I don’t want to kill any more! I’ve always said that I love animals, but what have I been doing? Look at these beautiful animals, they’re of no difference from us human beans. They have feelings and they feel sorrow, pain, and anger, just as we do. If we think that as human beans we have the RIGHT to LIVE, what makes us think that they don’t? What gives us the right to kill & eat them? Just because we’re smarter and more powerful of species than them, doesn’t mean we have the right to hurt them. And when nature has been so abundant of food and resources that we can grow infinitely (veggies & fruits & grains), I really don’t see any reason why we should be killing at the first place and why we still are.”

It’s been 2 years since. I know it’s not long, but I’m very proud of myself. Proud of the fact that I’m a woman of my words—that I’ve been doing what I said I would. And truth be told, being a vegetarian is one thing that I’ll never ever regret. It has brought so much peace in my heart that I couldn’t buy with all the wealth in the world.

Other than that, there are other advantageous changes that I’ve felt too:

1. I’ve become the healthiest I’ve been all these 24 years! Flu? What Flu?!

2. I become a much more patient person.

3. No more acnes! I can eat whatever I want to eat without worrying about having a break-out

4. Animals love me even more! I feel like I’m really connected to the nature. Most animals that normally dislike strangers just stick with me!

5. My skin is improving, & my face is glowing!

6. I have stronger sense of feeling & intuition. Now I’m able to ‘feel’ people more, when I used to just ’see’ people.

Well people, I’ve shown you my personal standpoint on vegetarianism & how it has a lot more meanings to it than simply ‘not eating meat’. My world has become more beautiful eversince I decided to go down this path. Well then, is any of you up for the challenge?