Aging with Grace

Obsolescence is a factor which says that the new thing I bring you is worth more than the unused value of the old thing.

Charles Kettering

After waiting four months, our new furniture just arrived. The sofa and chaise we bought replaced ones we’ve had for 18 years and they were used when we got them. I find I have become more and more hesitant to get rid of things. I worry about what happens as what we discard continues to accumulate. In the age of Ikea, it seems we have become more and more of a throw away culture. Buy it cheaply, keep it for a few years, and replace it with something else. Instead, of saving for an item that will last or purchasing it used, we acquire it for the short term. Amazingly, in this age of conservationism, what happens once we have discarded something doesn’t seem to enter into our decision making.

I grew up in a small town and we didn’t have a trash removal service. Everyone took their garbage to the dump, just outside of town. Any manner of things would be left on a big pile and, occasionally, plowed over to make room for more. I wonder sometimes, after all these years, what became of that continuing mountain of trash. 

Today, I believe we owe it to future generations, to consider if mounds of our discards is something we want to leave them as an inheritance. Because somewhere, along the way, someone will have to deal with it.