7:50 AM: I turned the hot water knob. I turned the cold water knob. Could not get the water temperature as desired.
7:55 AM: The above steps had been repeated around 100 times by now. I was frustrated. I had a meeting at 9 AM and the shower wasn’t doing its job. I was going to be fashionably late to this one (as usual).
8:40 AM: I ran toward the train station. I was going to be late for the meeting but the only emotion I had was of ‘disappointment’ toward my ‘shower’. If only shower could feel.
7:00 PM: It was a regular IMO with my parents. 10 minutes into the call I found myself cribbing about my shower! đ My parents laughed out loud. I wondered why! It was a legit problem for me. It took me complete 5 minutes to adjust my shower every morning and that mattered to me. The equation goes like this —>
5 minutes in the morning > 50 minutes in the evening
But my parents LOLing at my “problem” (the world should be read with quotations) made me realize the intensity of my problem… which was none. It was as if I had made something up to crib about. Getting late for work because of not being able to adjust the shower… in the bathroom of my 1 bedroom apartment… at the heart Seattle downtown sounds like a problem people would love to have.
After a close assessment of all my “problems”, I realized that all of them were #firstWorldProblems. I started taking mental notes and came up with a list.
- Shower temperature adjustment – In the bathroom of my 1 bedroom apartment that is located in the heart of Seattle downtown. 1 – You cannot get any more downtown than this. 2- I should be glad that I have running hot water/water all the time.
The more I think about this problem the more the picture of barren lands and people dying of drought comes to my mind. I come from a place in India where running water is a myth and all lands are barren; irrigation doesn’t exist and the only way farmers can be debt free is by committing suicide. When I think about that I think this might be the most first world problem I can ever have. - “I have no clothes to wear” – At least 4 piece of clothing falls on the ground when I open my wardrobe. I have an insane number of clothes and my wardrobe is always going to overflow unless I get rid of like half of it. I still cannot find clothes to wear.
This is one of the three essentials of life – Roti, Kapda aur Makaan. The problem of my life is that I have a too much of ‘kapda’ while people in other parts of the world cannot make their ends meet. I think I am probably blind to have been saying this. - Books – I like books. Books on the lines of clothes are overflowing too. My bookshelf is full and I need to find an overflowing section to keep my books. This is something I figured today.
All this while adult literacy rate in India is only 72.1% (Adult literacy rate for China: 96.4%. Please don’t blame India’s population here). Even Myanmar surpasses us by 21% (Myanmar at 93.1%) and the world average is 86.3%. The no. 1 reason they say is poverty. Too many books to read… probably a good problem to have. - Cannot get my makeup right – My makeup can be shiny/too shiny/perfect/bland/WTF is that? depending on the proportions of foundations and moisturizers I use. I cannot have the same look any two days.
So… I have enough money to buy multiple foundations and multiple moisturizers and cannot get the proportion of all of them perfect. And I crib about my makeup not being perfect… Yea… this is certainly as stupid as it can get. - My bathroom does not have a plug – So I cannot use all the hair curling/straightening/drying gadgets in my bathroom.
I crib about this while 2.5 billion people do not have access to a loo. - ‘Alexa’ doesn’t listen – And Fire has come across this problem as well. Our little robot (maybe?!) does not listen to our orders if and when she is playing loud music for us. Our voices don’t cut through the music probably. This is too fancy to even be considered as a first world problem.
After reading the list of my first world problems I thank God/whoever made me so privileged/my parents for granting me everything I ever wanted/did not want/never thought I would have. I have no wish list anymore. Do you? I think it is time we stop thinking about our fictitious problems and do good to eliminate the real world problems from this world. Use your resources well. Do your bit.
Of Sun and Sand 