An old repair shows that someone once decided this object deserved another chance.

A mend records a judgment made at a particular moment, that this thing was worth the trouble of keeping. Somebody weighed the effort against a replacement and chose the effort, and the evidence of that choice stays visible for the rest of the object’s life. Repairs get treated as blemishes when they are really the reason the thing is still here. What looks like damage is often the opposite.

Rather than hiding the mends in what you own, let one of them show. And when something breaks this week, find out what a repair would cost before you look at what a new one costs.