Forcing beliefs on others

It seems like every time I watch Trading Spouses or Wife Swap, I get pretty fired up about something. They find the most ridiculous families to film for those shows.

Anyway, last night I was watching Trading Spouses. Between the two, I definitely prefer Wife Swap. They get 2 weeks for the swap and it's much more structured than Trading Spouses. By the end of Wife Swap, each family seems to have become more open minded to different cultures/people, but with Trading Spouses pretty much everyone just ended up pissed off and ready to go home.

Last night one of the families was vegan. The other family gave swamp tours in the bayou (in Louisiana) and eats a lot of meat. What bothered me so much was the vegan mom.

Don't get me wrong- I'm all about people having beliefs and defending them if anyone tries to test them, but do NOT try to force them on other people! While this woman was in Louisiana, they threw a couple of parties. At each party, she would try to talk people into becoming vegan. At the second one, she even showed an informational video about veganism (right after dinner) and sobbed through the whole thing.

That brings me to my point. Just because you have chosen to live a certain way or do things a certain way does not mean you should try to convert people. This is true for many things. In this case, it was veganism, in others it's religion or morals. There's a difference between educating people that ask and forcing your information on them. As an example, I'd never get an abortion, but I'd also never go up to someone who was getting one and tell her that she's an idiot for doing it and that she'll burn in hell for making that decision...not that I think that would/should happen to people that get abortions.

All I'm really saying is that I'm tired of people that try to make everyone else do what they have decided is right. People live separate lives and should be able to meander down their own path without someone getting in the way and trying to alter where their life is going. As soon as people on a LARGE scale get this, I think there are going to be a lot fewer problems in the world. Everyone just needs to be happy with how their life has panned out and stop worrying about changing others' lives.