Planned Obsolescence

I was reading a friend's blog entry a few days ago, in which she discussed the issues she's having with her car and the difficulty of getting it repaired. As I read, something clicked in my memory and a phrase I first heard almost thirty years ago popped into my mind. Planned Obsolescence. Think about that for a minute.

Way back in 1980, I heard a very successful businessman from the local community lecture on an insidious trend in the American economy. He used the phrase "Planned Obsolescence" to describe an economy built on the foundation that every product we buy has a pre-determined "shelf life" of short duration. His premise was this: rather than using quality components to build everything from toasters to cars, manufacturers had begun a shift toward producing products of lesser quality and considerably less durability, believing that American consumers tended to prefer new and improved products over the tried and true. With this mind-set as a foundation, it was easy for manufacturers to push consumers toward the belief that "buying up" was preferable to repairing something broken. Accordingly, consumers performed true to those predictions and the result was a move toward a "throw-away society." Combining that shift in thinking with a marketing campaign that constantly touted "new and improved" products = a better, more satisfying life, consumers could conceivably be pushed toward making more purchases, more often. Consequently, instead of building a quality product that would not only last, but could also be repaired, thereby lengthening the "shelf life" of said product; there has indeed been a shift toward turning out "throw-away" products. The trend started with small household products - toasters, coffee makers, can openers, for example - and was so successful that it has now permeated every strata of the manufacturing industry, from electronics to furniture and even up to, and including, automobiles.

The American public, with its constant hunger for the newest, biggest, and best, has wholeheartedly embraced the concept of the "throw-away" society. If the toaster breaks, we don't repair it; We throw it out and go buy a new one. If a lamp quits working, it's time for new lamps. Two issues are at work here. Number one: the toaster and the lamp are designed and manufactured to wear out after a predetermined amount of time, having not been originally constructed to be durable or worth being repaired. And number two: have not small appliance repair shops met their demise, having been made obsolete by our obsession for newer and better "stuff" and by the impracticability of repairing a product that was manufactured to wear out in the first place?

Surely, there are still manufacturers that build a quality product with premium materials - products that are indeed made to last. But these products are in a class all their own now with a price tag that is inaccessible to the vast majority of the general public. As the concept of "throw-away" products has invaded the thinking of the American public, the phrase a quality product at a reasonable price has become as obsolete as have our two-year-old toasters and four-year-old computers.

In a society that assigns little value to the concept of permanence, newer is always better, old is obsolete and rampant consumerism is guaranteed, even in times of economic downturn. The throw-away society has created a vicious cycle that the American consumer is stuck in. We are caught inside a trap of our own making. If we were to even recognize the extent of our folly, how would we begin to turn the clock back? How does a country, a society, an economy turn back from the planned obsolescence train of thought and once again embrace the virtues of quality, craftsmanship and permanence? Is it even possible?

Before and After - the First Flip

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Blueberry Eyes

Is that not the cutest little face you ever saw? Little Isaiah with the big blue eyes that just melt your heart. Grandchildren have this amazing ability to turn the world right-side-up again.

I have four grandkids - three boys and a girl. Their energy is unbelievable. I often wonder how I managed when my kids were growing up. I had four at one time - two girls and two boys. When I went to the grocery store, invariably someone would ask me, "Are ALL those kids yours?" Then the next question would be, "Do they all have the same father?" I can't tell you how many times I got asked that question. I was always flabbergasted that anyone could be so crass. People are weird. They just open their mouths and say whatever pops into their minds. Can you imagine ever asking a complete stranger such a personal question? Sheesh!

And because I was young and always thought I had to be so polite, I would answer them. "Yes," I would say, with a shocked look on my face, "they all have the same father." Too bad I was so polite back then. Or maybe not. Probably wouldn't have been a good thing for my kids to see me acting all pissy to complete strangers.

And now they're all grown up. My mother used to say that the older you get, the faster time flies. I was a total smart-ass and I always said, "Mom, that's ridiculous. Time is time. It always goes the same speed. An hour is an hour, a day is 24 hours whether you're 9 or 90." She would just look at me with this placating smile on her face. Turns out she knew what she was talking about. Time really does go faster as you age. It's not a logical thing, it just IS.

And so it goes. Time marches on....

Beautiful Belgium

Brussels, Belgium - what an incredible place. Not only will I be digitally scrapbooking pictures from our trip there, I will be making scrapbook pages the old fashioned way. Pictures of place that beautiful deserve both. Here's one of the first digital pages.

Easter at Mimi's House

What can I say? I love to show off my grandchildren. Adorable, aren't they? This is a fun page - lots of colors, not too cluttered, a lot of emphasis on the pictures. I love it!

Warning: Word Purge Approaching

The writer in me is restless. I feel as if I have a huge jumble of words clogged up in my brain, twirling around and around like a tornado. I get this way when I have personal obligations pressing on me - you know, financial stuff, my husband's rapid-cycling moods of late, worry about any number of things. I think I would feel better if I could just open up my brain and take out the swirling word tornado. But it's not really the word tornado that is giving me grief. It's all the other "life stuff."

I'm the world's worst procrastinator. Seriously, the absolute worst. I will put things off until I have to break my neck to get them accomplished. When I was working, if I had something to do that I dreaded, I had to make myself get it done right away in the morning, because if I didn't, I would waste the entire day just finding inconsequential things to keep me busy to avoid doing the thing I didn't want to do. This whole procrastination thing is one issue I never explored when I was seeing a therapist. So, I don't know why I procrastinate so badly, but I do and it gets me in hot water sometimes. But, I'm still glad I never addressed it with my therapist. Jeez, I gave her enough mental bats to swing at me as it was.

That's the reason I quit going to her after a year. I always felt she was never satisfied unless I left her office crying. And I just started to feel beat up every time I went to see her. I just stopped going. I told the front desk to cancel all my appointments, but I never said anything to her directly. Mainly because I knew she would pick up one of those mental bats I had so freely armed her with and swing it at my head.

So, I guess it will always be a mystery why I am a procrastinator. Ah well, there are worse things than being a procrastinator. Although sometimes I'm pretty sure that my husband equates it right up there with being a serial killer. I can see the headlines now:

Serial killer strikes again, City terrified!

and then, right beside that headline:

Serial procrastinator still at it, husband felled by the stress of it all!

Okay, I can hear you all laughing, but it's not funny. Have you ever been awakened bright and early by a barrage of questions? "Did you remember to blah, blah, blah? And don't forget to blah, blah, blah. Don't tell me you haven't done ABC yet!" All of this while I'm attempting to swim up to consciousness and make sense of the words my husband is firing at me. It is not a pretty picture. I've learned now to just say yes, yes, yes, of course I did. Then he leaves the house, happy as a lark; and I kill myself that day getting everything done that I said yes, yes, yes to.

I work better under pressure. When I have a deadline to meet, I will meet it or die trying. And it doesn't count, apparently, if it is a deadline I have set for myself. It has to be imposed by a third party to light a fire under me. I don't know why that is. Go ask my therapist - but I warn you. Be careful, she has deadly aim with those mental bats.

I feel somewhat relieved at having spewed words onto the page. You, dear reader, on the other hand are probably asking yourself, What the heck just happened? Was that a tornado, or what? And the answer is: Yes. Yes it was--a word tornado and boy, oh boy, do I ever feel better!

Digital Scrapbooking

Have you ever done any digital scrapbookng? At first I wasn't too fond of it. I like the "hands-on" approach of traditional scrapbooking. But the more digital scrapbooking I've done, the more it's grown on me. I've even been designing my own background pages and that's really fun. Over the next few days, I'm going to post some pages that I'll do on my custom-designed background pages. Watch for it - I think you'll like it.