I've been vegan for over a year now, about 15 months. I changed

When Karen Carney declared, “I’ve been vegan for over a year now, about 15 months. I changed to the vegan diet, and I feel fabulous; it’s great. I wish I’d done it earlier,” she spoke with the voice of one who has discovered renewal — not through conquest or glory, but through conscious transformation. Her words are not those of arrogance or pride, but of awakening — the realization that change, when guided by intention and compassion, has the power to restore both body and spirit. In this simple confession lies the timeless wisdom of balance: that to live well, one must align one’s actions with one’s values, and one’s habits with harmony itself.

The ancients, too, understood the sacred bond between food, health, and virtue. In the teachings of Pythagoras, the philosopher who lived centuries before our era, we find the seeds of the same truth that Karen Carney now proclaims. Pythagoras taught that the human spirit thrives best when it refrains from harming other living beings — that the body, nourished by plants and purity, becomes a vessel of clarity and peace. His followers believed that what one eats shapes not only the flesh but also the mind and heart. Thus, when Carney speaks of feeling “fabulous,” she is echoing a truth older than time: that when the diet is pure, the energy of life flows freely through the body.

Her words also reveal a deeper human experience — the longing to have acted sooner, to have embraced wisdom before the years had passed. “I wish I’d done it earlier,” she says, not with regret, but with the tender humility of one who has seen the light after long wandering. Many of us live thus: bound by habit, comforted by tradition, unaware that change could set us free. But once transformation occurs — whether of diet, of thought, or of spirit — we look back and marvel at how easily we might have been whole. The vegan path, for Carney, is not merely about food, but about liberation — liberation from the dullness of routine, from the heaviness of unexamined living.

In her transformation, we see reflected the journey of countless seekers before her. Consider Ashoka the Great, the Indian emperor who, after witnessing the suffering caused by his wars, turned to compassion and nonviolence. He embraced ahimsa, the sacred principle of not harming any living being. Though his was a change of empire and spirit rather than diet alone, the essence is the same: when one’s choices align with compassion, the soul expands, and peace becomes possible. Carney’s decision to live vegan is part of this same eternal lineage — the path of mercy, discipline, and inner strength. She has, through her diet, joined a chorus of those who honor life in all its forms.

Yet there is also practicality and wisdom in her joy. When she says she “feels fabulous,” she reminds us that health is not an abstraction, but a living state of vitality that can be cultivated. The ancients would have called it eudaimonia — the flourishing of the whole self, born from balance between body and mind. By choosing nourishment that is clean, whole, and natural, she has tuned her body to the rhythm of nature. The simplicity of her diet has become the foundation of her strength. For true wellness is not found in abundance, but in alignment — not in consuming more, but in consuming with awareness.

There is also a quiet heroism in her transformation. To change one’s way of living in a world of convenience and habit is no small act. It requires courage — the courage to question the norm, to walk a gentler path even when others may not understand. This courage is the same spirit that once drove the Stoics to live with restraint, or the monks of old to renounce indulgence for purity. Carney’s joy, then, is not only in health regained, but in mastery attained — mastery over the self, over desire, over the forces of inertia that bind so many to lesser living.

Let this, then, be the lesson: that renewal is always possible, and that what nourishes the body also nourishes the soul. To those who hear her words, take them not as command but as invitation — to examine your own life, your own habits, your own diet, and ask: “Does this bring me vitality? Does it align with my conscience? Does it reflect the respect I owe to life?” Whether one chooses the vegan path or another form of mindful living, the principle remains: when you live in harmony with what is good, your body rejoices, your mind clears, and your spirit grows light.

Therefore, as Karen Carney discovered, change is not to be feared, but embraced. The sooner you begin, the sooner you awaken. For the body, like the soul, is capable of rebirth — and through discipline, compassion, and awareness, one may rediscover the ancient joy of simply being alive. And when that awakening comes, as she said with radiant simplicity, you too may look back and whisper: “I wish I’d done it earlier.”