This quote says "It's Okay To Live A Life Others Don't Understand." It has crossed my path several times over the past few months. I had no idea who it was attributable to, if anyone. I finally looked it up and it is a quote by a woman named Jenna Woginrich. Jenna is a young farmer who is creating a very do-it-yourself life based on her own values. She has written a couple of books, one of which is titled, "Made From Scratch: Discovering The Pleasures Of A Handmade Life."
I believe in developing self-sufficiency and pulling oneself off the consumerist hamster wheel. I most definitely believe in each person learning about themselves and what they truly want and going for it; learning what they need to know in order to create the life they want to create. What I want to emphasize with this quote is that it is very easy to get swayed by the culture, the media and often the people around us, so that we may not even be aware that we haven't made up our own minds about what we really want.
When one does start to make decisions based on an inner compass, it is quite common to run into other people's judgements based on their not understanding you. And as this quote just says, that's okay.
I love the whole idea of that philosophy and while I subscribe to it, I would be very remiss if I did not mention that AFTER I chose this quote and did the artwork, I discovered that Jenna is a former vegetarian who now kills her own animals and considers that an expression of her love for animals. I personally am a vegan, and a rather outspoken one on platforms other than these posts. And I struggled with what to write about this, because I am flatly against it. I would not do that myself under any circumstances. In fact, I think it is wrong to kill any beings, whether done on industrial farms or on a small one-woman-owned farm.
Not everyone who I meet, know, work with or even admire is going to have the same philosophy as I do about living a vegan lifestyle. It is a bit more rare however to find a person who writes about killing her own animals for food. As per this quote, and coming from the other direction, it is okay for me that I don't understand her choices.
And basically, there you have it. If I had known about Jenna's philosophy, would I have chosen a different quote? Probably, yes. Many of the ideas I am attracted to as quotes are said in multiple ways by different people, so I definitely could find a similar idea by another person. Would they be vegan? Again, possible, but not likely. Not likely, yet, anyway. That's okay.
Let me end this by saying that it is okay to live a life others don't understand.
And also, go vegan!
Sending you lots of love! Have a wonderful week!
Harriet xoxo
