Awhile ago I did a #FirstWorldProblems post. It went over well, but I never really thought about doing a second one.
Then I read about Pretend to be Poor’s mission to India. Which made me compare what she was doing to my current list of woes.
Clearly, it’s time for a reality check, so here’s another round of #FirstWorldProblems:
- Tim’s access to health care is making our schedule hectic.
- I have a job — and that means extra hours sometimes.
- My major physical concerns are whether I’m breaking out/have gray hair/have unruly eyebrows
- I’m not satisfied with my clothing selection.
- I have multiple pairs of shoes, but some hurt my feet.
- I have to spend money, which we have, to fix the above three issues.
- Maybe not enough readers will have voted for me, and I won’t win an award that has no monetary value attached.
Ah, there’s that perspective I needed!
A few other overwrought concerns on my part:
- Our Roomba is still dusty from disuse.
- Sometimes I forget to take my multivitamin.
- Tim’s GERD food restrictions are inconvenient.
- My choice (!) to eat healthier is also inconvenient.
- Tim is losing too much weight with the food restrictions.
- I might not have ordered enough business cards.
- We still haven’t put the cover on the ceiling fan after changing the bulbs two weeks ago. It looks weird.
- The Playstation still has a death rattle.
- The Roku in the bedroom has been freezing and resetting lately.
- Our stuff gets all dusty, and dusting is annoying.
- Patches is riddled with dandruff and likes my side of the bed.
- The car’s A/C takes a couple of minutes to be effective.
- The car’s audio system doesn’t like to work with my iPad.
- The tap water here tastes awful (and filters don’t work), so we have to pay a lot for water delivery.
- There’s not a lot of interesting stuff on Netflix right now.
- Once or twice a day the laptop has trouble with the wi-fi, and I have to restart the computer.
- I’m not keeping up with the various blogs I read.
- I’m not entertained every second of the day, so I get bored sometimes.
That’s a total of 25 things that I have no right (in the grand scheme of things) to bemoan.
What are your #FirstWorldProblems?
Thanks for checking out my post. I’m glad it could re-focus your perspective. The trip certainly shed a new light on the things I fret over, but I also know I’m bound to lose sight of my new vantage point. I think converting your list of worries into gratitude is a great exercise, and one I’ll try to remember next time my first-world angst is getting too high.
Kalie Brooks recently posted…Thoughts from India
Yeah, perspective is a huge necessity in our lives, I think. Whether you turn it into gratitude exercises or just snap yourself back into reality.
Great post!
My First World Problem is that I have trouble deciding which bus would allow for optimal arrival at work when normally I just work from home.
Oh noes!
And yeah, transit can be frustrating… until we look at the bigger picture.
Nothing like first world problems to put things into perspective! The one I’ve been struggling with the most recently is that it is too easy for me to connect to the internet to check all of my social media, etc., and I don’t have the self control to limit myself.
Ali @ Anything You Want recently posted…Online Dating on a Budget
Oh yeah, that’s a biggie. Tim made me start turning off my laptop in the evenings so I can actually be focused on what we’re doing. Unfortunately, we have an iPad so…
Loved it Abigail!
Mrs. Crackin’ the Whip recently posted…Mr. & Mrs. Crackin’ the Whip Go to White Castle
Thanks!
Weird Al Yankovic has #FirstWorldProblems as well:
Donna Freedman recently posted…Not dead, just busy.
I’d like to start off with a “Please don’t smack me” since I’ve been reading your blog for a while and my first world problems would make me want to punch myself in the face. So, if need be, I guess you’re welcome to punch me in the face virtually.
1. My relatively easy pregnancy and healthy baby has made me really want steak and aspargus and we’ve had to go out twice a week for it.
2. The extra money that my husband and I put in on our mortgage payment to pay it off earlier could be used to buy prettier things like shoes and video games!
3. My husband put a ton of ton in our donate box so now I have to drive all the way out to the local thirft store to drop it off.
Ugh…
Not the thrift store!!!! But yeah, a lot of the “problems” I wrote about kind of made me want to slap myself. I hope you’re enjoying your steak.
I read this post earlier today (great post, BTW!), then just now was looking up recipes online. It occurred to me that THERE IS AN ENTIRE TV CHANNEL DEVOTED TO FOOD! Like, how to cook it a million different ways, not, oh, how to get some if you don’t have it. So another first world problem: needing more ways to cook the overabundance of food that we have. God forbid we just be thankful that we HAVE food. We need new recipes!
Haha, good point! I’m sometimes embarrassed by how picky I get. Yeah, I know there’s food here. But it’s not pizza, dammit! And if someone tried to get me to eat eggs any way other than scrambled, I couldn’t make myself eat it. It grosses me out. Oh poor me.
First world problems…
1. Our weekly produce delivery (we’re part of a CSA) is no longer working with their egg and honey suppliers, so we have to join a seperate CSA if we want to continue getting scratch hen eggs and local honey.
2. The ice maker in our fridge has decided to hold an intermittent work strike- which means gambling on the repair guy being here when the problem is occurring.
3. My fiancé’s cat has pancreatitis, prompting us to try anything to get her to eat- the problem is our biggest success has been with KFC, which means we’re ordering a meal every day for her.
I love how our pets eat better than some people. I do hope your cat feels better. I’d imagine that eggs and honey are pretty integral to people who love to cook. But paying for two different CSAs… ouch.
The scratch hen eggs and honey do taste better, but there are also health benefits. Due to the varied diet, one which contains a little more protein than mass market eggs, scratch hens produce eggs that contain more of the beneficial fatty acids. Since wild caught oily fish isn’t readily available in summer months, those eggs help make up the difference. The honey is even more important- local wild flower honey (where apiaries are allowed to gather from many different plants, instead of orange flower honey or blackberry honey) helps soften the blow of allergies. The small traces of allergen contained in the honey desensitize your system.
Yeah, our pets eat very well- both our dog and cat food are made with human grade ingredients. Admittedly, the roommate works at a great pet store, and has an insane employee discount (50-60% depending on the brand), so the cost is knocked down to Purina level prices. The main problem right now is the pancreatitis. It causes a cat’s abdomen to be uncomfortable, and the cat gets really nauseated. Unfortunately, the way to pull a cat out of pancreatitis is pain meds, fluids, and calorie intake. Trying to get a nauseated cat to eat can be difficult, and medications only do so much- so we end up resorting to tempting foods. For this cat, the one she responds to the best is… KFC. She won’t even go for homemade fried chicken. So, the fiancé ends up having to hit the drive thru (which is outside of our usual budget).
Tim’s recent pancreatitis episode gave me some insight. I can’t imagine trying to reason with a cat with those symptoms. Poor kitty. The discount is awesome! We’d probably feed Patches better at those prices. Instead, I go for lower-end of the mid-range stuff like Nutro. It’s still better than a lot of the more name brand stuff. Which is what I tell myself when I see all the Blue Buffalo ads.
Haha this is a fun post.
My #FirstWorldProblems include: my student loan payment is too big, I don’t have as much time to write on my blog or book as I would like, sometimes my commute is longer than I would like, I have a lot of landscaping work to do on our yard, our house isn’t as updated as I would like it to be, I can’t play as much poker as I would like…the list goes on!
DC @ Young Adult Money recently posted…7 Common Financial Myths – Shattered
Not a long commute! The horror!
I never thought about student loans as a First World Problem, but I guess it is. Not having time/energy for a blog can definitely feel tough, even though I suppose it’s a pretty superficial problem when you get right down to it. Still…
I love the way you’ve reframed your problems! It puts my puny woes (“Oh gosh I have a house now that I have to take care of!?”) into perspective.
Taylor Lee @ Engineer Cents recently posted…August 2015 – Monthly Spending Update
Yeah, I’m sure a lot of Americans would be thrilled to have houses, while most homeowners (myself in particular) kvetch about the upkeep. Although your various costs are pretty substantial. So don’t poo-poo yourself too much.
All I have is first world problems. 1. Too much work and not enough time to do it. 2. Too much travel coming up and I have to fit work in somewhere 3. Planning my neighborhood Labor Day party has proved to be too time consuming and I won’t do it again next year.
Holly@ClubThrifty recently posted…Are Your Finances Out of Control?
Those sound pretty tough alright. Especially all that travel. You’re a trooper, no doubt about it.
Great post! I know I’m lucky in what I have, but sometimes the little problems and irritations really make it hard to see that, and it’s time to refocus.
This isn’t a current FWP, but it’s one I actually said once: “It’s almost summer, and I haven’t finished wearing all of my winter clothes yet!”
(The story behind it: I’d recently found a pile of sweaters and winter shirts I’d put away in the back of a closet. They were nice enough that I didn’t want to wear them around the house, but saved them for going out. And the seasons were changing faster than I could work my way through them! lol)
See also: There’s not enough room on the shelf for more books, and we have nowhere to put another shelf! and People are too interesting on the internet and there aren’t enough hours in my day!
Oh, and: I thought of a great name for a character, but my screen reader pronounces it funny.
I *love* the winter clothes remark. It really is indicative of how we treat possessions, isn’t it? Although I’m totally guilty of buying things I don’t want to wear around the house. And I’m around the house a lot.
I actually had to stop buying books because I have a hard time getting rid of them, we have a small bookcase, I refuse to pay retail for another bookcase, and our car can’t really fit one that’s already put together, ala Craigslist or a garage sale. Oh woe is me!
OMG the other day I had the ultimate FWP. I try to drink a certain amount of water per day (awesome Colorado tap water by the way, yes I know how lucky I am) and complaining because I still had a bottle’s-worth, 32 oz, left at the end of the day and I felt a little bloated. Like, literally I said “I have too much damn water to drink.”
I then went into the locker room and told myself in the mirror to STFU
Hahahahahaha. Here in the desert, you need to drink a helluva lot more than the 64 oz most people go for. I drink close to a gallon. Much less than that, and I get dehydrated. Grumble, grumble. And yeah, I sometimes complain about how much I have to pee because of all that water. Oh poor us, with all this potable water!
My current first world problems:
1. The fan in my bedroom squeaks and it disrupts my sleep. I could just turn it off since it cools off enough at night to just leave the window open, but I like to have a little air blowing on me at night. Last night I finally got sick of it and…well…swapped it out for another fan I was using in a different room. Duh.
2. I’m trying to juggle too many fun, social things to do right now. Had to give up knit night last night so I go try a meditation group. Tonight I’m having dinner with a special friend tonight (he’s making it! Yay!), and also trying to slip in an after work drink with a coworker. (I promised him a beer for turning me on to casual carpool, which can save a ton of money for East Bay area commuters.)
3. I have a four-day weekend coming up because my employer is giving us Friday off, too. A friend is visiting me from out of town for the weekend, too. She arrives Friday, and I still have to do some cleaning and make up the guest room before she gets here. I guess I’ll just have to take some of my copious employer-granted time off Thursday afternoon, too.
Damn, I hope my friend doesn’t want a fan in her room ’cause I’d be a horrible host if I gave her the squeaky one. 😉
Linda recently posted…Thoughts on love and personality
Not a squeaky fan!!!! Like you, I like a breeze on me. Even in winter, I have the ceiling fan going at the lowest speed. You’ve probably already thought of this but… W-D 40? Just a thought.
Sounds like you’re having a ton of fun. Even if it’s hectic.
It’s one of those upright fans and it’s apparently impossible to open it up to lubricate. I took it to a reputable small appliance repair place and all they could do was blow out the years of accumulated gunk on the tiny fan blades. Maybe my dinner companion can figure out how to open it up to unsqueak it. He seems pretty handy. 🙂
Linda recently posted…Thoughts on love and personality
Worth a shot! I’ve always had either ceiling or box fans. Both of which are pretty accessible if needs be. Enjoy dinner!
Ha! I get so irritated when I can’t find anything to watch on TV or on demand. I ordered out last night because I was too lazy to walk 2 blocks to the grocery store, but ended up walking a block to meet the pizza guy because he was lost. Now I’m mad I spent the money, but still can’t be bothered to go to the grocery store. I haven’t figured out a game plan for dinner yet today either 🙂 First world problems are the worst!
Kristin recently posted…How I Plan To Transition From Employee To Freelancer
Not having anything to watch can definitely feel like the end of the world at times. And inre: pizza… Content yourself with the fact that, even if you’d walked an extra block to the store, you’d have had to go home and actually fix the food.
It’s always humbling to get perspective on what we complain about! Our first world problem is that we are doing renovations for my husband’s home business, but he is getting too much business to allow him to actually work on the renovations. This is a good problem, right?
Prudence Debtfree recently posted…GARAGE SALE
A good problem indeed, but definitely frustrating I’d imagine.
Really fun post, we all have some of these. Mine are not enough time to play fantasy football league, been sick lately, and cant play basketball or work out, my cell phone is getting slower, grocery prices are going up. Good luck with your list.
EL @ Moneywatch101 recently posted…Nordstromâs Stock
That’s a pretty good list!
I LOVE this!! Needed this reminder so very much.. My first world problems are currently a broken computer hinge on my still-working laptop, and having to go to the grocery store to meal prep for the week. How petty we can sometimes be. Thank you for sharing!!
I found your website from the FinCon2015 attendee list! I work for Whitney Hansen Coaching and we cannot wait to meet every in a couple of weeks! 🙂
Ugh, going to the grocery store is the worst. I mean, until I stop and think about all the other myriad actually-awful things. Then I feel like an idiot.
I’ll see you there!
Okay, here goes:
1. My husband won’t let me throw out/donate all his extra stuff cluttering up the basement
2. My iPad has slowed down since the latest OS update
3. My iPhone is not uploading photos to Photostream quickly enough
4. The girl that waxed my eyebrows made them slightly uneven
Tre recently posted…Register Your New Business
Yeah, how dare our super-fast devices be remotely slower? I get frustrated with my laptop or iPad sometimes too. I try to remember that 15 years ago, 56.6 modems were considered blazing fast. But I still want my stuff to load immediately!
Also, the eyebrow thing can be frustrating. But as I once heard, you’re supposed to remember that they’re sisters, not twins. IE, they’ll never quite be the same, and since people’s eyes are rarely completely symmetrical, it’s not that big a deal. Still… grrrrr.