“Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.” ⏤New England saying

Broken zipper. Torn seam. Frayed cord. Twisted line. Clogged filter. Rusted hinge. 

How many pieces of clothing have you thrown away because the zipper started to snag or a seam popped open? How many items have you tossed out because a key began to stick, a frame bent or twisted out of shape, a surface got scratched or stained, or a single 50-cent o-ring wore out? If you were treated with the same disregard as most people show their personal possessions, you would be thrown away after breaking a bone, spraining a muscle, or getting a bad sunburn! Maybe that’s just the logical outcome of a ‘throw-away’ mindset, but a society that won’t fix things is unlikely to make things either. Consumption consumes creation. It used to be the norm for people to repair broken things. Now, it’s almost radical. Fixing things, though, is about as low risk a form of fun as there is. Think about it: If you were going to throw something out anyway, where’s the harm in trying to fix it instead?

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit a country frozen in time by economic stagnation, you might see people getting by with the same items they’ve owned for decades, if not generations. The cars from another era. The dishes, utensils, tools, and clothing passed down from family to family. A passing glance at their lives makes their reality seem lacking. A more careful look, however, reveals some unexpected fruits, like their intuitive sense of how to make do and their retention of skills almost entirely absent from most modern lives. As with most things, there is more than meets the eye. You don’t have to live in poverty to live simply. You can choose material frugality even within your life of prosperity. You can choose to make do, and to rely on your own intelligence to fix things rather than discard them. Freedom takes many, many forms, and deciding to discard the ‘consume and dispose of’ mindset is one of them. 

If anyone ever invents a time travel machine, it would be interesting to see a sort of intergenerational Olympics⏤an event in which contestants compete against their grandparents at the same age as they are now. For example, if you are 35 years old you go up against your grandmother or grandfather at 35. How would your ‘fix-it’ skills stack up against theirs? Would you know how to mend your own clothes, perform basic maintenance on your personal mode of transportation, repair the tools you use to make your living or entertain yourself, service the major systems that run your house, and tend to the basic medicinal needs of your household? If not, it’s never too late to learn these things. Every repair is a problem solved, a penny saved, and a fun challenge conquered.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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