Do you have 1st world issues or 3rd world issues? #TiWiWf
On Sunday, at church, at the awesome, Hope Community Church, Pastor Mike Lee spent his 20 or 30 minutes (I don’t count — I’m too enthralled) talking about whether our problems (those of us in the US and particular those that live in the metropolis that is the Raleigh-Durham area) are ‘1st world’ or ‘3rd world’. We even watched this amazing video (the video I’m referring to starts around the 6:30min mark) which is so apt.
When is enough not enough? Do we have it all? Do we need more?
My kids always need more. They think they need more. They want more. More. More. More. More.
Right?
Have we become this amazingly materialistic society that is seeking to “one-up” the Jones’s instead of just keeping up with them? Or have we learned?
My kids don’t think they’re spoiled … and in some respects, they aren’t. In others, they are terrible, terrible, terrible.
It’s not just our kids though.
We went to lunch after this particular sermon and as we were sitting at the table in Five Guys in Cary, one of our favorite burger joints, I pulled out a tomato and made a face at my husband.
Why?
It still had the center — the hard part that’s white and crunchy — not the way a tomato should be.
As I pulled out that tomato and made that face, my husband said:
“1st world problem or 3rd world problem?”
He stopped me cold.
That tomato slice, on my hot burger, next to my yummy fries with my iced tea and the basket of peanuts sitting next to me …
I am spoiled.
My problems aren’t problems.
My problems are ridiculous.
The world is FULL of kids who don’t even have rice for dinner. They don’t have dinner. They didn’t have lunch or breakfast. Nothing.
And I’m sitting there complaining about my tomato not being sliced well.
And that it’s cold when I run from the warm building to the car.
With the heated seats that we call ‘hot butt’.
Talk about being put in one’s place.
Wow.
I’ll never get this feeling across to my kids. If they don’t have clean clothes, they complain. Well … sometimes. I have one who’ll wear the same pants 10x repeatedly without washing if I’d let her. 😉 They complain when it’s hot and when it’s cold (though I have to admit I do, too) but then they get their blankets and wrap up. They will never feel the cold of not having that stuff.
We are BEYOND PRIVILEGED to live in the US. BEYOND it. I was born into a world that thinks not having the latest XBOX or Wii is a travesty. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about it, but we have a new motto when someone complains in our house and I have to admit it took about 15 explanations before my kids understood what it meant to be able to answer properly.
Now … if we complain about anything, the questions that arises is:
“Is it a 1st world issue or a 3rd world one?”
And if it’s 1st world … it is discounted unless it’s something that affects being fed, being clothed, being housed or their education.
My goal?
Get my kids to unspoil themselves by understanding how MUCH they have in comparison to 95% of the world.
We’ll see if it works.
So … Do you have 1st world issues or 3rd world issues?
Share in the comments!
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Great post, Aimee!
Thanks, Lisa!
Loved the post! Something to ponder upon, really.
Thanks, Pragya! That was exactly my intent. 🙂 A bit of philosophical musing.
While I think this is a wonderful post, sometimes it’s not always that cut and dried.
My ADHD son doesn’t have any understanding of society queues. We’ve tried relating things like waste of food and even him having a house (I grew up in college apartment housing) to homeless and people facing famine. It doesn’t sink in for him. He isn’t facing that reality and he very much lives in the here and now.
He can’t relate to people his own age, how can he relate to problems in countries he’s never been too. We do try to get him to watch some reality shows on A&E, TLC, and Discovery but it doesn’t stay with him.
I worry that he is going to have to fail before anything I say to him will sink in. Sometimes you do need to let things fail in order for people to learn.
It’s not about experience in this case. We as an overall society (in the US and other 1st world countries) think simple problems are huge when in fact it’s the rest of the world that has ‘real’ problems. It’s a wants vs. needs issue. That was my point here. 🙂 Whether a child can learn — that isn’t up for debate. Some will. Some won’t. For a variety of reasons. Mine won’t in many cases, but I certainly plan to plug along and keep on tryin’. Maybe as adults mine will ‘get it’. 🙂 That’s my goal at least.
In my grandparents generation, they had to work for everything. They wanted better lives for their children. And their children and grandchildren have better lives. But they are also very different. Our first world society works on more intellectual activities than manual labor. In some ways this leaves people without the feeling of accomplishing something. They get that feeling of accomplishment from their ability to buy things. Thus we have moved into a more materialistic society. So the question becomes where do we go from here?
Our society has worked to prosper and make lives better. But what goal does our society have to strive for. In the sixties when so much research and development advanced our society there was a goal of going into space. Since then, we’ve improved on what we learned but there has been no forward reaching goal. We are floundering.
Is it really fair to compare 1st world and 3rd world problems? Because they are at different levels. 3rd world countries want what we have. The question should be, what does the 1st world country want? Our simple problems seem more because there is a perception of nothing to strive for.
And I focused on my son because I can’t change society…I can only influence my son and hope he will eventually understand.
Aimee, I couldn’t agree more. My kids whine over every little thing, too. Although, in all honesty, I’m very lucky in the sense that they do understand and accept ‘no’ as an answer when I tell them they can’t have something. I’ve also never bought gifts just for the sake of gifts outside of birthdays and Christmas. In my house, gifts have to be earned–usually with good school reports, etc. And the motto in my house when the kids whine over something they haven’t got: Quit complaining about what you don’t have and be thankful for what you do.
You’re accept ‘no’? Dude. ::bowtoyou:: No to mine means, “Let’s negotiate” or “let’s try harder” or “ask for something else”. I swear. It’s unwinnable. Though somehow *I* win. 😉
Thanks for sharing Aimee! I was starting to see entitlement issues with my 2 children several years ago and realized something had to change. Our church sends people to Baja, Mexico twice a year. So, I decided that instead of going on our yearly vacation that we were going to Baja! My kids did not want to go and fussed about it. But when they got there I saw right before my eyes a transformation. They had been changed by spending a week with people that lived in homes made out of cardboard, scrap wood, plastic, etc and could not afford water or food. It was a huge eye opener for them! Now when they come across their peers that seem to have an attitude of entitlement, they come to me and say that particular friend should go to Baja for a week.:) The thing is you do not need to go far to help people in need. A few weeks ago we were passing winter clothing out to the homeless in Raleigh….that is an eye opener too for teens!
That’s AWESOME, Geri. You know I suggested we do something similar, especially with The Boy. But The Man said *I* wouldn’t survive a week in a 3rd world country because I won’t sleep in a Motel 6. 😉 Obviously, we both have issues. 🙂 So … I am working to find an adventure we can do together in JUST this way. I’m SO glad your two saw the light (at least a little). I want to give that to my 3. 🙂