I look at my headphones. It takes me now two hands to put them on. One ear pad has become loose. Well, it fell off. But I can still make it work somehow.

The head phones are 5 1/2 years old and I bought them with the money from my last corporate industry project. 

Over the years, I marked them with a white eraser pen and my initials. Then I’ve put a yellow tape around. The yellow tape is my little helper when I’m sharing a work space or am plugged in at a friend’s place to not forget my stuff. 

Most of my things have a little yellow tape flag. 

On the headphones it also helps me to immediately know which way to put them on. Yellow tape = left ear. 

The red thread around each of the pads shows where I stitched them back together, maybe 2 years ago? When the “leather” upon the foam pad suddenly became loose – and with it the foam pads. 

The headphones were only 2 years old when it happened and I was so angry that they wanted me to pay 20-40 € to replace them after only 2 years of their life. 

So, I took red thread and stitched them back together. I hold them in my hand and can’t believe how well that fix worked. 

In the beginning, I debated a lot if I would “ruin” the design with the fixes. But somehow, I got even more attached to my everyday item through it. 

So often in our current culture we throw away things just because one thing is broken, not pretty enough, not in style anymore. We buy something new instead of getting attached to its cracks, scratches, and specific bends. 

The Japanese even have a word for it. Wabi Sabi. The beauty of imperfection.

These headphones are wabi sabi for me with all their weirdness. 

So, when the ear pad came off completely and no double-sided tape would help anymore, I bought a new off-brand set. 

They still look a bit too shiny, and I miss the read thread. But I’m sure I’ll make them rugged rather quickly.