I've been a veggie for several years. Actually I was for years more when I was younger, but the kind of 'I do like meat but I won't eat it because I love the little animals!'. It wasn't exactly hard not having meat, but I wished that I didn't crave it sometimes and didn't like depriving myself of it when I wanted it. I felt like if it was 'right' for me to be a veggie, I wouldn't have that urge to eat it.
So then I decided that if I wanted it I'd have it - that if I was going to not have something, it'd be because I genuinely didn't want it, not because I was depriving myself. So I ate a bit of meat every now and then for a few years, but never really liked the fact I was playing a part in such a cruel industry when I gave it any thought. Although the way meat is prepared and packaged in supermarkets and food outlets, they do all they can to take away the blood and bits that identify it as an animal, so they certainly make it as easy for you as possible to disassociate life with what you have on your plate!
Then one day (whilst watching some people fish funnily enough) the switch just flipped - everything fell in to place and I no longer wanted meat at all and haven't since. I just know that I couldn't kill an animal to eat it, and I certainly don't want to play a part in what goes on in the meat industry (which is much worse than any way I'd raise and kill an animal myself), so I won't give them money to do my dirty work either. And that's cancelled out any desire for the end product.
People usually ask me if I was on an island and I could eat a wild pig or die, would I eat the pig? I'm sure I probably would! My point it that we're fortunate enough not to *need* to eat meat - it's not down to survival anymore, just personal choice. If animals were treated better - for example living a free range life being well cared for and the people eating the animal had no problem slaughtering the animals as humanely as possible themselves, then that's 'natural' - as natural as a lion catching and eating a gazelle. I just don't get people who say it's natual for us to eat but squeal at the idea of doing the dirty work themselves yet are happy for 21st century industry to do it for them. Where's the nature there?!
The thing is, there's always something else. I don't buy leather or anything but for example by eating cheese and milk, I'm contributing to loads of cows being racked up and milked for hours every day to be milked. This is milk they wouldn't produce naturally, but churn out only because their calves are taken away from them at a very young age, and they're then attached to miking machines which trick their bodies in believing their young still need milk, so their bodies make more. And they're often given hormones to keep them in milk too. The same as any species, cows produce milk to nourish their young, but we make an industry out of it. Plus when those cows can't give enough milk, off they go to the slaughter house to end up as burgers - unless you're a vegan you're still contributing to it all. I just buy organic/ free range dairy produce where possible as they generally treat the animals better. They all still end up at the slaughterhouse though!
I have no desire to have a vegan diet at this moment in time, so won't even consider it. I know with the vegetarian thing that if something is right for me, it just comes natually, so maybe veganism will hit me one day, but maybe it won't! You just have to make choices that you're happy with and try not to pay people (through industry) to do things that you don't agree with ethically. But it's not always black and white when applied to your life - there has to be a balance, and one that you're happy with.