First World Problems

After moving to the US, and I started attending college, I feel like I’ve started complaining about the simplest stuff increasingly. Let me list some stuff I find myself complaining a lot about:

•     RUWireless, and other ways to access the internet
•     Rutgers Bus System
•     Weather
•     Take-out options at Nielson Dining Hall
•     Recent windows 10 updates
•     Inconvenience of not having your own car, etc.

Those are some of the stuff I complain about daily. They are just minor stuff, and shouldn't be really a bother to me, but they are. For example, during this past winter break, we had an electricity outage for about 10 minutes. And no electricity means no Wi-Fi. So, I got very annoyed because of it. That 10 minutes of electricity outage is nothing compared to the electric and water outage I’ve experienced when I was still living in the Philippines. In the Philippines, outages usually last for about 8-10 hours on average. So, I shouldn’t have been pissed. I should have been okay with it. Situations like that always get me thinking about how spoiled I have become since we emigrated here. I, often, get so used to the having things that I forget how other people don’t even have the means to access the same type of resource.

Watch the video below, created by Ryan Higa (nigahiga), and see what other kinds of First World Problems are out there: 

How old were you when you got your first phone? I got mine after my fourteenth birthday during my 3^rd year in high school in the Philippines. It was a second-hand slide phone from my aunt. Though it was just a 2G phone, I was still happy and satisfied with it, because it had a music player. That's what mattered to me, the phone having capability to store tons of songs and play them. Before having that phone, I didn’t own any other devices or gadgets. Sure, I was able to use my parents’ phone, but that was only until it was absolutely necessary for me to use.

How about your first PC or laptop? When did you get it? Following the mobile phone, my sister and I got a laptop, as a present, from my uncle who lived in the US. It was given in hopes of encouraging us to study better and harder. Too bad I pretty much used it to watch anime and K-pop videos. Anyway, though I had to share the laptop with my sister, I didn't care. I was just glad that I didn't have to leave the house to do research or to just browse and watch videos on the internet.

The student in the middle of the group with the laptop is me. And the laptop I mentioned above was the one we were using to watch some Korean shows. ☻

I guess, what I’m trying to get to is that, I am slowing losing the value of appreciation. And, as a society, I think that is also where our direction, in terms of appreciating commodities, is heading. We are less likely to appreciate things now because they are more convenient, easy to access and, also, so easy to dispose. If I may dare to say, I think we a lot of take things for granted. 

Every day, we are surrounded by things that are supposed to make our lives interesting, fun and comfortable. If those things, whether be it a transportation, a device, food or whatever it is that we use in our daily lives, disrupts our plans or lifestyles, even just for a little bit, we complain. If things don’t meet our expectations, we complain. But, just like the message of the quote from The Great Gatsby below, before we complain we should first think about how lucky we are to even have those privileges in the first place.