"First-world problems: I hear this expression more and more lately. Even in their own therapy sessions, some people seem to feel embarrassed to mention a personal issue that might seem trivial compared to greater suffering elsewhere. Focusing on your hurt feelings because a cousin didn’t invite you to her bridal shower can easily appear shallow if you place it in the context of African genocide or refugees drowning in the Aegean Sea...
Many of us in the mental health profession hide from ourselves in a similar way. We’re empathic healers, devoted to our clients. Never mind that our personal lives might be a shambles. When listening all day to people who talk of problems that seem far more difficult and painful than our own, we find it easy to minimize our struggles, easier to empathize with their pain than face our own."
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2015/12/15/got-first-world-problems-dont-feel-guilty/?WT.mc_id=2015-DECEMBER-FB-RETENTION-ATRISK_AUD_DEV-1201-1231&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&_r=0&referer=http://m.facebook.com/
So, honestly, it kinda irritates me when people say "first world problems". I mean, what is that achieving? It implies that we are supposed to forget ourselves until our problems are the worst ones in the world. I hateeeee that philosophy, the idea that we can't complain or fix something until it is worse than anything it can be compared to. There is so much that stays put because it isn't the very worst.
The other problem is that the phrase is assuming a lot of things about the "first world" and the non-first world. People outside of the US have these problems too! They are irritated by slow Internet speeds and frustrating relatives and banks that charge mystery fees. And we in the "first world" don't lack big, dangerous systemic problems - we have poverty and disasters and human rights infringements. We just don't recognize them because "we're the first world".
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