A Christmas of #firstworldproblemsBrian Heasley - 6 Dec 2013

I was at a wonderful reception a few evenings ago, with great canapés. One of these was a lovely little crème cheese and caviar number, which I happily quaffed. As I left the reception I noticed that some of the caviar had got stuck in my beard! As I wiped it off I was struck by the absurdity of the moment and thought it would be an amusing tweet: “First world problem, caviar on my beard!” (I didn’t use the hash tag but I know its out there #firstworldproblems)

What is a first world problem? 

That morning I watched a major news channel report on a bank malfunction which stopped people using their bankcards. One man was being interviewed and he was outraged that he couldn’t pay for his meal and, shock horror, his girlfriend had to pay! There you have it: a real ‘first world problem’!

Prime time on the media and they choose to focus on a 3 hour banking blackout, I found my self fuming and running an inner grumpy dialogue about a media and a world that sometimes seems to have lost all perspective….

Then by the evening I had caviar in my beard!

Get some perspective...

In many ways the hashtag is extremely positive, it gives us the opportunity to laugh at ourselves as we realise how trivial occurrences in life can set us off balance.  #firstworldproblems is the hash tag of perspective! When we use it we are just catching ourselves and pulling ourselves up.

Christmas provides the perfect climate for us to get caught up in our own #firstworldproblems; when is Amazon’s delivery deadline? My December is too busy with parties! Dieting is sooooo hard at Christmas! I got the X-Box One instead of the PS4….and so on.

In the busyness of Christmas, we must remember that many people in the world would love to suffer with our ‘#firstworldproblems’.

So, this Christmas, whenever you find yourself getting stressed about something that really doesn’t matter, why not take some time to pray for the millions whose Christmas problems are not having food or clothing, not struggling to deal with the excess.

Prayer brings us perspective, the place where we start to see the world differently and soon realize what really matters and what doesn’t.

All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms:
Feature image is a derivative of the image 'Starbuck cups.' by Ruben Schade.