By Jessenia Nozzolillo
My charger broke. They always break. At this point, I feel like I need to just subscribe to chargers. I’ve bought many different brands from many different places, and they all break. For a moment I thought, “When is the world going to stop making so much junk, I wonder how many of my chargers are sitting in a landfill somewhere. Why do people get away with creating such junk?” My soul interrupted to blurt out, “Fast and cheap is the most dangerous addictive pattern humans are in.”
That stopped the whole conversation and I immediately went inward to see what the hell they were talking about. As far as I knew, fast and cheap is convenient. As a mother and business owner, I spend a lot of my time looking for fast and cheap solutions.
But then the awareness set in…
Fast and cheap solutions are never actually solutions. They are just bandaids, and many times the bandaid is much more dangerous than the actual issue.
We live in a world where junk food, medicine, clothes, and plastic are all over-consumed because they are fast and cheap. But, the long term side effects of their overuse can be deadly. And I realized there was a time and place on this Earth where things weren’t necessarily fast and cheap. The industrial era meant that factories could pump out much more merchandise but it also meant that the quality would be less. Sell more and price it low. Fast and cheap. No skills or hands were going into the work. They didn’t care if it broke, you could afford another, and another, and another, and another. Better yet, you are now paying more for that one first cheap chair than a nice sturdy solid wood chair that could have easily lasted a couple of generations like chairs used to do. But fast and cheap created the illusion that this was a better option because it was cheaper. It is not actually cheaper.
Likewise, fast and cheap also means we can push out new fads, styles and designs. This method obviously pushes sales. Get the new, updated, stylish model. It’s ok if that one breaks, we’re going to get a new one soon anyways. Waste. Everything piles up in landfills. The world is being stripped of its resources. We keep believing in and pushing for low quality as long as it’s cheap, meanwhile cheap is becoming the new expensive because we’re competing with different variations of trash and very little present quality. So fast and cheap is no longer really cheap.
This is about so much more than just items. Fast and cheap is now becoming a lifestyle. We expect relationships to surface without work and trash them as soon as they aren’t perfect. We expect fast bandaids for our emotions and self-medicate or pop pills. We choose elective surgery over doing the work. We run into relationships like our time is disposable and worthless. We obsess over current trends and fashion instead of sustainability. We choose fast food over a healthy well rounded meal. We very rarely consider the long term prices for the behaviors we are choosing!
If you want to do something for the environment, or for yourself, aim for quality. Quality might take more time. It might be more expensive. But it’s a great start to breaking the pattern of wasteful behavior we have been programmed into. All good things take time. Nothing in this world that is worth your time and energy will be fast and cheap! Consider the long term pattern for your fast and cheap solutions. Are you promoting healthy habits? Are you considering environmental implications? Are you considering how long these items will last or checking reviews? Are you choosing fast and cheap fashion over sustainability? Are you filling your space with plastics instead of choosing items that will last for decades?
This holiday season, I ask you to start exploring these questions, and instead of “fast and cheap” we aim for meaningful and long lasting.
Happy Holidays.
Copyright Protected Jessenia Nozzolillo 2022