First world problems

  We humans love to complain, it’s part of who we are. From the moment we land on this
world, covered in blood and frightened by the commotion of an operating room, we complain. The first sound that comes out of those recently formed vocal chords isn’t one of joy; it’s our first expression of discomfort in the form of a loud scream. As days and years go by our complaints become more and more elaborate, the list of what we consider annoying grows exponentially.

  The contrast between what bothered us as infants and the worries and concerns of adulthood is remarkable. One could argue that it’s only normal, given our fuller understanding of what surrounds us as mature human beings, however, our complaints rarely evolve in terms of substance. We aren’t really annoyed by issues of transcendent importance like poverty and hunger, what really gets to us is not being able to afford the new iPhone 4S or not being close enough to Justin Bieber at his concert, not to mention those times when Twitter crashes and we can’t tell the world just how good the coffee we’re drinking is.

  We as a society urgently need to reevaluate our priorities, it’s not that complaining is bad per se –it’s important to express discomfort or disagreement–, but it should always serve the purpose of making things better, we should accompany our expressions of discomfort with ideas that could lead to improvement. And, most importantly we should focus our attention on problems that affect humanity as a whole.

  There are people who devote their lives to coming up with solutions for devastating problems like genocides or global warming, unfortunately most of them go unnoticed by the mainstream, only a few get recognition for their efforts (Al Gore & Jimmy Carter are both Nobel Prize recipients) but none of them generate as much press or praise as big corporate chief executives like Steve Jobs (whose biggest triumph was convincing the world to spend billions of dollars on products unrelated to any basic human need).

  We need to move past the paradigm of consumerism and tend to the basic needs of every man, woman & child who inhabit this earth. The first step is realizing that what we consider problems are just minor inconveniences of the first world.