precision female wrote:
a right to be happy....I question that. Says who? Only people. We imagine we have that right. We don't give animals a right to exist or be happy so giving it to ourselves seems greedy to me and I don't want any part of that.
I hear what you are saying about animals, but I can't grasp the logic of going through your life having made a choice to be consciously unhappy

IMHO everybody has a right to be happy; by choosing not to be happy would also affect any humans or animals you have contact with (animals are great at picking up the mood and/or mental state that we're in). When I was happy my dog used to be happy too, when I was down he was down as well. If one of my work colleagues is having a bad day I usually pick up on it and I start to feel the same way. If I am brutally honest, if I knew someone that appeared to be deliberately unhappy I definately would limit the time I spent with them (excluding depression of course, as if that were the case I'd try and work with them to get through)
When I'm feeling unhappy, hard done by or whatever I just think of those less fortunate than myself and realise I have so much to be thankful for. Sometimes it will spur me to make a donation to the RSPCA or just donate some dog or cat food to one of our local animal shelters. You only get one life (that we know of anyway), so we should all be using our vegetarian/vegan status as a positive thing otherwise it's not going to inspire many people is it ?!
Sorry for the long post, and there's nothing personal in it so please don't read into anything. I just think anybody and everybody has the right to go through life as a happy person with the ability and possibility of empowering others with their beliefs
