Society dictates to us all that new is good and old is bad. The accumulation of shiny bright objects if now one of the most overwhelming desires and conditions that surrounds us in everyday life.
We despise the old and tattered thing as a negative sign of status and success and something, which somehow shows we have failed in our quest to live properly. We have even managed to dis-invent things and then re-invent them as new again so that we can buy them all over again (for example vinyl and the resurgence of vinyl – I am someone who could be addicted to this) It seems wholeheartedly ridiculous that you would have collected countless records in your youth only to scrap them all to buy CDs then to scrap the CDs to buy MP3 and then realise that you love vinyl and it sounded better so buy the vinyl again.
No more stark is this problem exhibited than in the sphere I which I work. Where new products and techniques are available on an almost daily basis and the marketing machine is designed to tell you that you are failing as a practitioner if you haven’t picked up the newest gadget or technique. The people who market to patients will say they get the best results overall from the new techniques and new technologies. We have had countless examples of this in dentistry over the past few years including, veneer-ology, IFAL-ology and short term cosmetic orthodontic-ology, none of which had any foundation in research, nor were the potential long term complications investigate prior to use. It will get us all in then end this, not only as a profession when the hoards of people come back with the problems the encountered to start with to curse the next generation of dentists.
As a society when we turn around one day to create another new thing and find there is nothing to use to create it.
Christmas of course is the worst time to view all of this when, yet again, we try financially to prove our worth to others by buying gifts they don’t really need, for purposes they don’t really have, a lot of the time with money we don’t really have. I then wake up on my birthday (6th January) to the biggest domestic violence spike of the year when people realise that their life is not exactly what Christmas was supposed to make it.
There is still joy to be had in the things you have that are not new and the way you have done things for a long time that you know work in simple, predictable ways for the benefits of other people which lead long term to greater connection and greater reputation and a more secure tribe of people who follow you for the things that you do because they like it.
By far the best marketing for our business is one patient at a time who send their friend or relative and says “trust them”.
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