What's the worst thing you've ever done?

I once turned on the voice recorder on my phone and shoved it in front of my wife. "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" I asked her.

She laughed for about two minutes straight, I love her laugh, it's intoxicating, so full of joy and without malice. Unfortunately, my phone decided that life with me was no longer bearable and decided to turn itself off and never reactivate. So I'll have to try that stunt again, nothing gets me through a bad day like listening to her laugh.

Seriously though, what's the worst thing you've ever done?

If you ask most people this question they might gaze upwards for awhile and then reply:

"I cheated on my wife."

"I picked on this kid at school."

"I stole from my parents, and I've never been able to forgive myself!"

It's not a pleasant thought. We've all done bad things, things we regret. Everyone will have a "worst thing I've done" sometimes it'll seem pretty tame, and other times it'll seem monumental.

It's a complicated question. For instance, maybe your thinking something like "The worst thing I've done was leaving a friend behind on the battlefield." but when I hear the story I'm hearing "war hero under heavy fire who had little choice."

Anyhow, I was just joking when I asked my wife this question, but it got me thinking. "What is the worst thing I've ever done?" The answer wasn't obvious. I've never been a bully, I've never killed a man, I've never held up a bank...so what's the worst thing I've ever done?

After umpteen minutes it dawned on me. The worst thing I've ever done was torturing and killing hundreds of animals.

Why was this not obvious?

Three facts about me:

1. I'm vegan.

2. I find the treatment and killing of animals by the meat, dairy, egg, vivisection and all other forms of exploitation to me abominable and probably the greatest crime of our time.

3. For 20 something years I ate meat, drank milk, ate eggs and didn't bother to see if a product was tested on animals before I bought it.

So for 20 something years I partook in what I think is "one of the greatest crimes of our time" but it didn't spring to the front of my mind. Am I insane? No, just human.

Yes, although I'm vegan I've still been brainwashed by a LIFETIME of smiling clowns trying to sell me the chard remains of Daisy the cow, pictures of winking chickens giving me the 'thumbs-up' above establishments that sell their deep fried corpses and products that are so mild on my skin because the prototype burned the epidermal layers off fifty cats.

We live in a world the could be heaven. We have so many resources, so much technology, but even from this heaven we direct animals into the gates of Hell.

We need to choose vegan. We need to be compassion. We need to go out our way to end the cycle of brainwashing and violence against animals, the planet and each other that we see every single day.