The Disposable World

Of late I’ve been taking stock of a lot of things that all seem to be tied together.  I know that seems vague and classically introspective, as if I’m trying to sound deep.  I’m not.  I promise.    To sum it up, I think we live in a very disposable world – our mindset is always on short term, rarely on long term.

Think about it…We have major fashion retailers like H&M offering items of low quality at bargain basement prices, because the expectation is we’ll simply replace them next year.  Cell phone manufacturers have us locked in on a new phone every 2 years.  How many of you bought the iPad, then bough the iPad2 only a few months later?  The portions of food we pay for at a restaurant are enormous…so enormous we rarely finish them and instead throw away 50% of our meal.

We earn, we burn and we churn all the time.  Get a new pair of jeans, beat them to hell, throw them out and get a new pair.  This isn’t limited to what we buy.  If only.  Even our relationships are disposable.  The 7 year itch is now a 3 year itch.  We add and drop friends on Facebook so casually.  And why not?  It’s so easy to do, only requiring the click of a button.

Our movies aren’t timeless.  The music produced today certainly isn’t; how can it be when we have entertainers like Lady GaGa and Britney Spears masquerading as musicians and an entire generation believing that Justin Bieber is more talented than Michael Jackson?  Nothing seems to last and more importantly, we don’t seem to want it to.

I’m all for living in the moment.  I preach it.  But, if the moment is fleeting, why bother?