The privilege of first-world problems

Life is unfair.

Don’t believe so? Here’s the evidence.

You’re at the supermarket trying to get some cold cuts and what do you mean you can’t slice the deli ham any thinner?

The Uber ride was supposed to arrive two minutes ago, but it’s taken almost three!

Every time you go to plug in a USB cable it always goes in the wrong way at the first try.

AI is supposed to be all the rage but it’s taken this stupid thing a whole 0.3 seconds to provide a 1500- word summary explaining the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire! Thank you modern technology.

Holidaying at an expensive beach resort you go to the windsurfing hire kiosk and what do you mean you don’t have any boards available for another 20 minutes?

You’re at the supermarket again and the only tinned tuna they have is chunky style. Where is the sandwich spread tuna? You’re out of stock? Where’s the manager?!

You’re sitting in first class on an all-expenses-paid business trip and your special gluten-free meal arrives with the refreshing drink you ordered and what’s ice doing in the glass? Did I ask for ice? Get the captain!

And then there’s the eternal classic.

You’ve buttered your toast, you drop it and which side down does it land on the floor?

You know the answer. We all do.

Proof positive how life is, indeed, unfair.

We are assailed on all sides by all sorts of problems: big problems; serious problems; money problems; health problem; grave problems; dire problems. Nobody wants these problems.

Yet there is one category of problems everybody would love to have: First World Problems. You know them. They’re the ones that prove how unfair life is.

If you are beleaguered by First World Problems – Martha! Where the heck did you put the remote for the 85-inch TV? – you can count yourself among the luckiest people on the planet.

While everyone else worries about final notices and mortgage payments and credit defaults and grocery bills you have found yourself in a life situation where – by luck or design or a divine combination of both – your biggest concerns involve slow valet parking service and your golf game being delayed 15 minutes because of bad weather.

To enjoy the luxury of having the time and freedom to expend energy on transforming trivial matters into a customised category of problems is to be the envy of those who dwell on the lower steppes of life’s pyramid of problems.

If only there was time to spare a thought for them but there’s not because how long is it going to take these earbuds to pair with the phone?

What an outrage. And just so unfair.