Dear Vegan at Heart,

I was forwarded this email recently–I’m not sure where it’s from, but I really appreciated the message. Even though I do consider myself vegan, I often feel that I’m not as perfect a vegan (or person) as I could and should be.  Especially for perfectionists, it’s easy to get distracted by what you aren’t, and forget how important it is to stop sometimes and remember what you are.

Dear Vegan at Heart,

This is a fan letter to you. Why am I writing you fan mail? Because you will change the world. You ARE changing the world every day in so many ways that it can never be fully quantified, so you will never even know.

I’m a fan because you’re the kind of person who doesn’t settle with what is; you’re concerned with what can be. You try to spark conversations with friends, family, even strangers about an injustice you’ve heard about in the hopes that they will care as much as you do. You wish you had lots more money so you could give lots more money to charity…and so you could buy everything fair-trade and organic to support good companies. You get excited when you meet people who are making a difference in the world. You ask yourself, “Am I really making a difference? As much of a difference as I’d like to?” So you compare yourself to those people and beat yourself up a little (or a lot) for not being more effective or as “green” or as perfect in that particular way.

And then you meet a vegan, and maybe you’re a little annoyed at their consistency, at their fervor. Maybe you even feel a little judged and put off but still you think, “Hm. I wonder if I could be vegan. ” But the thought of changing so much of your life is scary. “What? No more cheese pizza late at night? EVER AGAIN!?!”

You think…those people who sit at home and cook healthy vegan dinners every night…they’re not like me. Those people who get fresh fruits and veggies from their organic, biodynamic CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture farms) every week and go so far as to CAN them so they can eat healthy, local food in the winter…well, they’re not like me. I don’t have TIME for that.

And you know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t have that kind of time. And neither do I. On any given evening, you will come home at 9:35 and you’re famished. You nibble on some stale tortillas while thumbing through the takeout menus because if you don’t eat in 20 minutes you’re going to rip somebody’s head off. But you feel bad about ordering what you ordered because: 1.) it’s not vegan; 2.) it’s more expensive than home-cooked food; 3.) you feel ashamed that you can’t give the takeaway delivery guy a bigger tip; and 4.) your food is enshrined in polluting plastic that will be dumped in the trash in 20 minutes. But you think, “Well, at least I carried this glass bottle in my backpack all day to recycle it…which would explain why my back hurts.”

If you can relate to ANY of the above, then you’re my peeps. We are one and the same, my friend. BUT! Even though we don’t have time to make every meal a delicious, whole, healthy, organic vegan meal, that doesn’t mean we don’t have time to incorporate tiny healthy, vegan, eco-friendly routines into our lives every day.

So this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to get an email from me every weekday for the next six weeks with a vegan mission. Each mission will take no longer than 10 minutes. And I can guarantee it because you’re going to time yourself, and after 10 minutes you can stop. I WANT you to stop. We idealists have an incredible ability to get side-tracked easily or else we hyper-focus in our perfectionist way so much that tasks take waaaay longer than they need to. Concentrating on the task at hand for 10 minutes will help you be efficient. And if you don’t complete the mission, that’s okay. You don’t have to.

If you like, you can tell me if you completed the mission and whether you liked it but you don’t have to. I am not your mother. I am not the vegan police. I’m not even 100% vegan every meal every day! (Gasp!) I’m sure there was probably milk protein in the breadsticks I ate at the Italian restaurant last Saturday night. And sometimes I buy cereal without noticing in the store that honey is the 9th ingredient.

This is not about perfection; it’s about progress. I don’t even want you to be vegan for the next 30 days. Did you hear me? I DON’T WANT YOU TO BE VEGAN NOW! I’m a big fan of sustainable change. That’s incremental change that can be sustained over time with a smaller chance of Perfectionist You crashing and burning. But it’s your life and if you want to try the vegan thang, that’s okay too.

I’m really glad you’re doing this. And I bet that if they knew, the animals would be glad too.

Your fan,

Marisa