1st World Problems

I have finally moved into my new apartment. Oddly enough, the thing I was looking forward to the most was having my bed back. I moved it, along with the rest of my furniture, a week ago, so I camped out on the floor and couch all last week at my old duplex. I cannot remember a time that I was this tired. It is so bad that I have dark circles and bags under my eyes. Each night- floor or couch did not matter- I would wake up every 20-30 minutes to rotate and relieve my body’s pressure points.  Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

As I thought about how pathetic I was for complaining of not having my cozy bed, I thought of a conversation I heard on the radio a couple of weeks ago. The talk show hosts were talking about this new “idea” if you will about first world problems. It’s basically things that we, in first world countries, complain about that are so insignificant to world standards that it is almost humorous.  For instance, someone talking about their iPhone not loading Facebook fast enough would be a first world problem. Can this even be considered a problem? People in third and sometimes second world countries have no clue what an iPhone or Facebook is and quite frankly they do not care. They have more significant problems like making sure they get enough food and that they will be safe while sleeping.

This was quite the reality check for me. How many times do I complain about traffic being busy or a red light being too long only to be sitting in my reliable car with air conditioning? Or how often do I complain of having nothing to eat when I have a full pantry and money to go out to eat? How did I get so lucky to be capable of even having first world problems? It is amazing, and sad, to realize how many of these “first world problems” I have on a daily basis and thankfully they are becoming more evident to me.