As bad as broke is, once reached there's the possibility of future fixing. After all things have to change, or we may as well be dead. Goes with that other nice association: the sun broke over the horizon. The idea of a new, better day dawning.
Once something is broken we can fix it, instead of limping along with the barely functional. Could be a tool or object but more often it's probably a system or process, something that has worked in the past but over time has become less effective. We can limp along with it for a while, but when it finally, irrevocably breaks, we can replace it without too much guilt and indecision.
Of course it's better to do regular maintenance, set things up to be fixed before it's a disaster...but that's not how things work, at least for me.
It's as if there has to be a "real" or "good" reason to do it. I can't just get something new because I want it (after all we have to reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever possible), but if it breaks, really, really breaks, now I can get what I've wanted all along. Somehow it's the same with processes. I can't just change the order of my morning because I feel like it, there needs to be a measurable need, some cause and effect I can point to.
