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There is nothing like a good cookout. The smell of the grill and the food getting perfectly yummy is incomparable. Then it comes time to serve the food. All the condiments are carefully laid out beside the delectable side dishes. Can you see the steaming corn on the cob, creamy potato salad, and fresh
beans? Wait! There are brownies, too!
But then, tragedy strikes. We sit down to eat, and there is only yellow, Dijon, and a German mustard.
Where's my stone ground mustard? I look again. Oh my. I go to the refrigerator and dig through the shelf full of condiments. So many, one almost needs an inventory sheet to keep track. How they all got in my 'fridge is a topic for another day.
Alas, no bottles contain the whole mustard seed concoction I yearn for.
I trudge back to the table, a bit miffed to be honest. Who finished the bottle and didn't put it on the shopping list? Hint: I'm the only one who likes it.
And that's when I see myself crossing some invisible line; one that separates a trivial, ridiculous inconvenience from the many legitimate hardships all around us. We all do this. And it's ok, as long as we understand it's a 'first-world' problem.
A first-world problem is simply a minor, yet genuine, annoyance or frustration that seems significant because we lack (or aren't paying attention to) more serious, life-threatening concerns. The thing is, these 'insignificant' moments conjure real feelings of distress, too. Even though the problem is relatively minor, the internal anguish isn't. We all need to be aware of this so as not to condescend to or dismiss our feelings, or the feelings of others.
When we catch ourselves diving into seemingly silly woe-is-me-isms, let's rejoice! Maybe we can even turn it into a joke as a means to dial in our frustrations in lieu of some healthy self-awareness. After all, if all we have to complain about is mustard, our lives are pretty amazing. Being forced to accept the absence of stone ground mustard, for example, can serve as a reminder to feel grateful for basic comforts and a high standard of living.
We can be profoundly grateful for our lives and still be irritated when our favorite condiment is missing from the table. Those two states of being are not mutually exclusive. We don't need to remind ourselves that people are struggling and therefore I'm not allowed to be annoyed. For example, a broken dishwasher is still frustrating and potentially expensive to fix. We can be simultaneously annoyed and grateful. An afternoon can be ruined by a delayed or canceled flight at the same time we recognize we are fortunate to go on vacation.
Perspective doesn't necessarily eliminate emotion. It gives the emotion context.
Many of us have so much. So many kinds of apples. So many clothes. So many basic conveniences. Even, the number of free little libraries around most communities gives a nearly endless choice of reading material.
Yet somehow, having more choices hasn't necessarily made us happier. Oftentimes, abundance creates its own peculiar frustrations. What shape pasta for dinner? I counted 37 kinds of pasta last time I was in a grocery store.
Don't even get me started on the statement, "There's nothing to do."
We have solved problems our ancestors couldn't even imagine having, and created entirely new
problems as a result.
First world problems really aren't the frightening issue at large. The real fear is if we lose the ability to recognize them as such. There is a concerning difference between the statement, "Ugh, I can't believe the internet is down," and "The internet is down. My life sucks." The first is human. The second
sentence is the absence of perspective.
So, when we catch ourselves whining about, say, a ground mustard-less summer dinner, we can zoom out. When we take time to widen the view, our irritation melts away. Now we are sitting down with others, enjoying a shared meal on a warm summer day. The complaint hasn't disappeared; it just became much more insignificant.
So tomorrow my coffee might be cold. I'll probably comment, "First-world problem." Not because I'm not allowed to be annoyed. But because sometimes it's good to remember just how small a problem can be when we step back to see the whole picture.