First World problems

A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a lunch group at a pho restaurant that included men from Malaysia, Iraq, Bhutan, Vietnam and Cambodia, and a young woman, part Native American, who was a law student from upstate New York.

Three of us were making small talk as we waited for the others to arrive when I mentioned that I was dealing with a new "challenge" -- of forcing myself to do a left-arm dominant stroke while doing laps during my morning swim. For too long, I said, I'd been doing the crawl exactly the same way, two strokes and then turning my head to the right for a quick breath.


The last time I went for a massage, sometime in January, the therapist suggested I mix it up. Turn your head to the left when you come up for air, she said, and it will ease the tension in your neck.

I knew she was right but I was frustrated trying to make the change. Instead of just getting in the water and going for it, now I was having to think about adapting to a new pattern of breathing and alternating arm and head movements, without crashing into an oncoming swimmer in the same lane.

"That sounds like something my mother would call a First World problem," the law student said with a smile.

I hadn't heard the term before but I readily agreed. Urban Dictionary, by the way, offers two definitions: 1) Problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at. 2) A more politically correct term for a "White Whine."

I wasn't really complaining about the new routine in the lap pool; I was just saying how awkward it made me feel. The larger point, though, is that the student's remark has stuck with me as a good reminder that so many things that cause us to complain -- even good-naturedly -- are really trivial in the larger scheme of things. Such as...

-- The awful music that's pumped into the sound system at the gym.
-- Those dead-zone areas where you can't get cell phone service.
-- A city bus that comes earlier or later than scheduled. (There's always another one coming.)
-- When you've got a sauce-to-nugget imbalance. (See above.)
-- "Facebook depression" -- a condition that may affect troubled teens who may think they don't measure up to other people's friends' tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times.*

* Seriously. Ripped from this morning's headlines.

Images from www.uberhumor.com, www.stickycomics.com