First World Problems

The pizza box doesn’t fit in the refrigerator.
Cable only lets me record two shows at once.
The batteries in my toothbrush are dead.
First world problems are funny. It’s healthy to illuminate how petty inconveniences are, well, petty. When our biggest problems are dying batteries and forgotten Wi-Fi passwords, we have a lot to be thankful for. In contrast to dirty water and ramshackle housing, awkwardly sized pizza boxes become trivial nuisances—and rightly so.
But the meme misses the truth: Real first world problems are far from minor.
Our world is much less materially poor than it was thirty years ago. Less than half as poor, actually. In the year I was born, over half of the world’s population asked the question, “Am I going to survive?” Today, less than 15% of people ask that question. The landscape of poverty shifted in just a few decades.
Broadband, oil, cell phones, and mass transportation opened doors of opportunity in places almost unthinkable even two decades ago. Commerce—the engine of prosperity—has chugged into nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. You can now buy Pepsi in Kigali and chat on Skype from in Manila. The rest of the world has begun to look a lot like here.
Global poverty is still alive and well, don’t read me wrong, but it looks much different than thirty years ago.
While in Hong Kong last fall, I walked miles and miles through the city streets. I saw some of the world’s tallest buildings and meandered through many of Hong Kong’s bustling neighborhoods. In the 1940s, poverty plagued Hong Kong. Violence, food rationing, and widespread disease reigned. Today, Hong Kong is one of the wealthiest cities in the entire world. But not everything signals progress. I saw a troubling undercurrent as I walked the city.

On my way to a lunch meeting, I noticed something peculiar: Upscale jewelry stores sat on every corner. That in itself was intriguing. But the concerning sight was how these stores were all mobbed. With teenagers. And they weren’t just browsing; they were buying.
Groups of adolescents entered and exited these stores adorned with Chanel watches and Cartier necklaces. Bags hung on every elbow. This was extreme materialism.  Their parents felt the pains of prosperity too. Parents I met lamented the culture of workaholism.
Greed, obesity, hedonism, isolation, spiritual apathy, lethargy and depression lurked in the shadows of Hong Kong’s glassy towers. Hong Kong used to look like North Korea looks today—mired in grinding poverty and shackled by failing economic policies. People lived short, hard lives and many died simply for lack of food or basic medicine.
Without question, I’ll choose modern-day Hong Kong over modern-day North Korea. But the first world problems they experience in Hong Kong are not petty inconveniences. We joke about first world problems as if trifling annoyances are our chief concern. They aren’t.
The problems are not as dire as failing hospitals or corrupt governments, but they are just as oppressive. We don’t need to look beyond Manhattan’s boardrooms or Hollywood’s film studios to know the seriousness of the problems we have exported to places like Hong Kong.