Reality Check

Last week my daughter and I watched (or should I say, were shocked and couldn't look away from) the reality show "Jerseylicious". For those of you who have not seen the show (and it definitely is a "show"), and feel the need to delve into the seedier part of life, you can tune in and experience it for yourselves. My blog is not about the show per se, although it, and pretty much every other minute of reality television could certainly provide a ton of writing material. It's really about one of the story lines this week that revolved around an interesting practice apparently popular in New Jersey called "Trash the Dress". The premise being that you don your wedding dress (post wedding of course) and literally "trash" your dress while being photographed. I must admit the idea was completely foreign and bizarre to me. Who would spend all that money on a dress only to purposely destroy it? And then I realized my larger concern, *everything* in our society is disposable.
Clearly the ability to have disposable, single use items such as diapers, razors and soda cans is a huge convenience. But, the term "disposable" has so invaded our vocabularies that it's attached to all manner of things from plates and cameras to incomes. The problem, in my opinion, is that too many individuals seem to treat their entire lives like paper napkins,to use and toss. This approach is applied to everything from material possessions to marriages. Nothing is cherished, or deemed important enough to really work at or salvage. Sick of your cell phone? Buy a new one. Not satisfied with your job? Find another. Marriage hit a rough spot? No problem, there's no fault divorce.
When did we sink so low as to rate our relationships like our toys, to be tossed aside at the first sign of frustration, boredom, or inconvenience? In our zeal to take advantage of our multitudes of blessings we have failed to appreciate the biggest ones of all, each other. The definition of disposable is "expendable", and "unnecessary". Really? Is that what people are now? Are our friendships, families, marriages and even pregnancies so unimportant, so easily replaced that they can be thrown away so readily?
I hope not, I pray not, because in my experience there is nothing so valuable, so irreplaceable as people. The only things we should be tossing are the things taking the place of what's really important.