Fixing Things
Last night I crawled into bed with my kindle and couldn't help but notice my little reading light was lying in two pieces on the bedside table.
I assumed that like me, my little boy has a keenness to take things apart to see how they work. At two and a half though, taking things apart means snapping them in half.
For how incredibly useful the little light is, It's not an expensive piece of tech. It was a present but I think you can buy them for about seven quid. Never-the-less I just spent a good chunk of an hour fixing it.
Why fix it?..
I feel we live in a pretty disposable society. You only have to go down your local Tip (Recycling Centre) to see that. The act of repairing something, no matter how cheap, has a lot of other value attached to it apart from the obvious saving money benefit. Learning new skills and helping the environment for starters. Not to mention the feeling you've achieved something. A small win over the god of chaos and whoever the patron saint of binning perfectly good stuff is. For this reason I like to at least have a go at fixing stuff.
There are lots of things that I can't fix. Our education and banking systems. Most cars. And yesterday evening I had some digital kitchen scales in bits on the kitchen table. No matter what I did the display still kept giving me an error message. I salvaged some parts and the rest had to be chucked.
My best investment this year has been a glue gun. I am not exaggerating when I say It has saved me hundreds of pounds in the few months I have had it.
On the whole, fixing stuff is incredibly rewarding so if you get the chance please give it a go. At the very least you will see how stuff works.
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