Everything deteriorates. Natural, man-made, living, and non-living all change shapes, crumble, disintegrate and break apart over time, at different paces. Nothing stays static over time and everything has a half-life.

In order to stop the deterioration things need to be constantly improved or renovated. As long as the rate of improvement of an object or thing or living being is faster than the rate of deterioration or its half-life, the life of such an object is extended over time. And this extension is different for various things which have different ends of life. If one stops improving or renovating one is then actively deteriorating.

Think of applying this principle to anything that you can think about. How much time, money, resources, and effort do one spends to constantly improve and renovate things around them including themselves? It is all energy and where you spend it. It takes injecting energy to upkeep the life in things.