Most of us will experience, at least once in our lives, a crisis of conscience that revolves not around a specific moral choice, but around the question of whether we are daring enough in what we choose to believe is possible. The limits of our moral courage are bound on all sides by our sense of possibility. Looking back through history, many great tragedies seem to be a great puzzle. We ask ourselves why did so many decent people participate in systems that were clearly unjust, like slavery?

If we believe our current situation is inevitable, we become too afraid to entertain a vision of a better world. We feel foolish believing something our culture says is absurd — such as the idea that we will someday stop killing and hurting animals for our own desires. However, we have an obligation to turn toward the truth of what our conscience is saying.

We can choose to close our eyes and pretend that the dominant narrative about “how the world works” doesn’t give us an uneasy feeling in our stomach. Or we can courageously use our voice, even if it is unpopular, to say that a new day is dawning and that it will bring justice for people, animals, and the planet.

What if we told you that the best thing you can do for animals was as simple as believing something that will make others possibly see you as a fool, a dreamer, or a dangerous radical? Standing between our world and a more compassionate one is the illusion of the eternal nature of ideas and traditions. 500 years ago, no one could have predicted the ethical revolution that has happened around issues of race, gender, and sexuality.

Today comments like, “I believe that one day we will consider the way we treated animals horrific and unthinkable,” may be met with scorn or incredulity, but every time you’re willing to speak them, you bring us one step closer to a revolution that is long overdue. When you have the courage to believe in what you can’t yet see, you become part of the movement that will change the world.