one way that being vegan has improved my life is that it's reduced the stress of cognitive dissonance, by which i mean i feel like my dietary choices are in line with my values and beliefs. i'm a practicing Buddhist and not killing is the first precept in Buddhism - and there's millennia of history of at least vegetarian if not entirely vegan cuisine coming from countries and societies where other people took that precept seriously.

for me personally, another moment that impacted me was when my wife and i adopted two cats that had been discovered in an empty house. they were such playful, intelligent, and obviously feeling creatures; what in my life made me feel like cows, pigs, or chickens were any different?

anyway, that's sort of what's improved. it's definitely created more complications too as so many others have pointed out. my wife's not vegan, which bothers me occasionally. my mom totally doesn't understand what being vegan is; she seems to think it's basically keto somehow? i travel a lot for work and in some of the really rural places i visit, finding vegan options can be tough. i don't mind that, but when i travel with co-workers they love to give me shit about being vegan. i keep showing them delicious food options (for example, Frisco, CO, has an amazing Vietnamese restaurant with some of the best vegan food i've ever had), but they still like to mock. oh well. i hope that by living according to my values, i will have an impact on them even if they don't admit it.