It usually starts with Pinterest. Clothes, handbags, shoes, scarves, sunglasses. . . all of these things are so pretty on the outside. But am I willing to pay the cost to obtain them?

I find myself asking more and more these days "what is the real cost of this?" Who made it? What is their quality of life? 

Frustratingly, I can't know the story of every product that I buy. . . not the whole story. Even clothes I make, you have to wonder about the fabric. . . how was it woven? Who helped harvest the cotton? What subsidies were paid? What are the reproductive systems like of the women living around these farms that are being sprayed with chemicals? What are the dollars I am spending doing to change the world? We step all over life to get what we want. . . 

. . . and I can't see much of a way to get around it. . . beyond starting a new world.

Is it because I am getting older? Or is there really more despair, frustration and crookery now than their used to be? Either way, how I am suppose to function 20, 10 . . . even 5 years from now?