First World Problems

It has been one of those weeks, filled with a series of unfortunate calamities, some small some larger, that will require the investment of time, effort and money to correct. None are of such consequence that they are irreparable. In a week or a month or so they will be gone, forgotten but for the rueful lessons learned.

A popular meme describes these moments as first world problems, making light of misfortunes that by virtue of our circumstances are hardly life shattering. It is mildly amusing to think that way and it does keep such minor difficulties in perspective, but I can’t help but think about the real meaning behind the phrase.

Are there problems in our first world that are not so easily dismissed? Emphatically yes, because in so many instances our first world isn’t first at all. For too many of our citizens, our neighbors, it is as impoverished, difficult and life threatening as those places we imagine and thank our stars we do not inhabit.

Our first world it turns out is only that for a relatively small number. The rest are getting by or not, but their problems, their daily challenges are outside the field of vision for most of us most of the time. We don’t have to travel very far, wherever we happen to live, to find those living on the edge. The edge of poverty, the edge of sanity, the edge of homelessness, the edge of grinding, labor, the edge of exhaustion, physical pain, illness and the crushing loss of hope. That and more surrounds us wherever we may go, but we are well practiced at failing to notice, at looking the other way, of believing it is someone else’s problem.

Let me be clear, I am not judging, I am as guilty of this behavior as anyone, caught up in my own thoughts, preoccupied by own life. It is only when I am confronted, that I take notice and act. Do I respond, of course I do, in the moment, only to fall back into the habits of a lifetime, failing to remain focused on what is not pleasant or comforting to think about. There but for grace go I but what about my neighbors?

Today, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic that some delusional or self-satisfied individuals dismiss, more than 4 million have died and nearly 200 million have been infected. Doubtless those numbers are understated and will surely increase before the virus is under control. Yet somewhere between 25 and 40% of those who live in this country alone refuse to be vaccinated while hundreds of millions throughout the world would give anything to obtain a vaccine to protect those they love.

It appears to have escaped us that beyond what should be sufficient, humanitarian concern, our failure to regard the health of those who reside in some other part of the world has as much consequence for us as if they lived next door. We cannot duck and dismiss the tragedy playing out around us as someone else’s problem, it is ours. How many times must we humans discover that what happens everywhere matters—that we face a common existential threat. Until and unless we ensure that our neighbors, the overwhelming majority of people who inhabit this planet can be made free of this disease, it will continue to pose a constant threat to all of us. It is not somebody else’s problem, it is not a first world problem, it is not something we can walk away from even if pandering politicians and media pundits say otherwise.

Neither is the looming crisis of climate change that is already wreaking havoc all over the globe and in first world countries including our own. Massive fires, floods, drought and 300 year storms have been occurring with alarming frequency in the last decade—they are now so common as to shatter all records even as they exacerbate famine and disease.

Yes, others have and will continue to suffer first and more harshly. Our sovereign wealth and infrastructure may protect us for a while, but inevitably we too will no longer be able to deny reality or pretend it cannot happen to us. Eventually we will be forced to recognize that we cannot go it alone. No nation or even a group of ten or twenty can fix what we have together done to our planet. There are no such things as first world problems only problems that we must collectively address.

If the injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself has failed to appeal to either our moral conviction or common sense we might conclude that at least in part it is because our relationship with ourselves is not one of love but one of doubt, even fear of who we might be. It is far easier to reject, even hate those we do not know, those who differ from us, or those whose world is unlike our own. Accepting responsibility for our own failings is not an act of betrayal but of courage, for who can save us from ourselves but us?