I learned to be open-minded once I stopped eating meat.

There is a sign in Vitanza Commons that defines the word “flexitarian.” This lifestyle is close to vegetarianism, but it allows the occasional consumption of meat. The sign encourages students to forgo eating meat once a week.

I never knew there was a name for this lifestyle until I saw the sign. When I would explain to people my dietary choices, I would say that I was vegetarian, but I would eat meat once a week at most.

When I found out there was an actual term for this lifestyle choice, I realized the name was quite fitting for me. After adopting this lifestyle, I became more flexible in many areas of my life.

I never used to be flexible. I would have set routines until something changed or I got bored with it, then I would create another set routine. I was content with the ease of predictability.

This change in diet didn’t seem too dramatic for me. I liked it because I would be able to try something new and also feel like I was making a difference in the way of saving animals’ lives.

One of the hardest parts of adjusting to the flexitarian lifestyle was that I had to learn to try new foods. I’ve always had problems deviating from my preferred diet. For the first few months of college, I convinced myself that if pizza was topped with vegetables, then it had to be healthy (which, obviously it isn’t).

After adopting this limited diet and not making any attempts to try some of the other options in the cafeteria, my meals become boring pretty quickly.

This forced me to become more flexible.

There were so many foods like avocados and eggplants that I had convinced myself I didn’t like before I even had the chance to try them.

After observing this tendency in my eating habits, I realized I acted the same towards anything new in my everyday life. I ruled out anything that was foreign to me before giving it a chance.

Once I realized that when I tried new foods nothing bad came from it, I realized that I shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things in every area of my life. If I could be open-minded about food, then I could be open-minded about life.

I would never have believed someone if they told me I would hike a mountain this year because I told myself that I couldn’t do it and that I was too afraid of heights. I wouldn’t have believed someone if they told me that I would have two tattoos by the time I was 20 because I was too afraid of needles.

Now I tell myself that I will try anything at least once because if I don’t try it, then I’ll never know whether it’s something I like or not. For so long I limited myself to what I knew out of fear, and now I realize that it was silly to hold myself back from something I might love.

To contact the Ionian’s Taylor Brown, e-mail her at [email protected]