Everyday Musings > Is it worth it?

Cost and Worth are often poles apart.

A £18 admission ticket to see the original paintings of a master is a profit for me. Buying a poster with the same art on it for £12 is a cost for me. Buying good quality fresh vegetables worth £20 that keeps my doctor's bills away is a profit. Spending £15 on a restaurant salad is a cost for me.

We live in a consumer-centric time where things are designed and consumed at a rate never seen before. Fashion has gone from Spring/Summer-Autumn/Winter to include Resort and Fall and now pre-season lines, thus ensuring new merchandise in the stores every month. Old things are discarded and new bags are bought with a fake vintage worn out look which is ironic in itself. The idea of 'Something New' is turning out to be mostly cost and very little worth.

The emergence of DIY, sewing, gardening on balconies, second-hand shopping and buying locally has challenged the buy-buy culture. It is making the idea of 'worth' more relevant to us and removing the stigma of it 'being cheap' or 'thrifty' and replacing it with a belief that one can attain a richer life by angling for less 'worth-less' things.

Consumption is as much about real fulfillment as it is about satiating the mind. Thus how does one put a cost on satisfaction of seeing/experiencing something beautiful. Which is where the Internet is such a blessing.

The Internet, currently, is high on worth, as it doesn't cost us per view and is essentially free. Tools like blogs, fb albums and Pinterest are a fantastic way for us to vicariously collect and show-off the things we love without owning them. By posting a picture, or posing next to someone else's Ferrari, sharing someone's comics collection, it tells us and others that 'we are living that experience'. And most often, it's more than enough. We pin it, post it, share it, like it, and move on.

In a city like London, I am fraught with the choice of cost and worth every day. It's a re-engineering of my mind, a letting go of the band-wagon, but as I've come to see over time, you'll earn it all back and more.