Nothing Lasts Forever - What a Waste

We accept "built in obsolescence". We don't repair anything nowadays - we just buy a new one. Big businesses are profitable because we are conditioned to do that.  The skills of the repairman have been almost completely lost. No one would know where to start to repair something, even if you could buy the parts. Anyway we are all too busy to have the time.

We want the latest model, so new models of almost anything are brought out at least annually & often much more frequently. There is nothing wrong with your mobile phone, but you need to upgrade - the mobile companies obligingly tell you & you rush to the store to comply, spending a fortune - unnecessarily.

Food is programmed with convenient labels to tell you the "best before" or "use by" date. People don't bother to look at the food or smell it to see if it has gone off - they just throw it away. Is it really to do with any danger eating the food might present, which wouldn't be overcome by cooking it? No, it's so you will buy more, thereby increasing the food manufacturers profits. 

Everything from "fashion clothes" to kitchens & bathrooms is disposable. You are actively encouraged to see things as a "fashion statement" about yourself. How much taste or money you have. (Or how gullible you are!). Nothing is made to last. Craftsmanship goes out of the window. Cheap "mass production", often abroad, is the rule of the day. Just keep the wheels turning & the money flowing out of your pocket & into the big companies. Consumerism is king.

We are now reaping the harvest of this - We have literally created mountains of waste which will never disappear. In the process we have wasted unbelievable quantities of the earth's finite resources.

Individuals change, so relationships go through a constant process of evolution. Friendships & partnerships begin & end. Our social & relationship needs change. The person we thought would be a permanent part of our life, suddenly drives us potty. Or we see that we just don't want to put the effort into maintaining the relationship any more. This is especially true when we are living well into our 80's. 60+ years of happy marriage to one partner is hard to achieve. It requires real effort. Many people want instant gratification, not hard graft.

According to the Dalai Lama, people "pass through the stages of birth to old age, sickness & death. Ageing destroys youth, sickness destroys health, degeneration & death destroys all life". Nothing that is living will last forever. But the corollary to that is that there is always new life. Spring will always follow winter. (Unless we allow climate change to really mess up our planet).

So nothing really does last forever - Unless it's the mountains of waste polluting the whole earth.