#StopComplaining
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that #firstworldproblems is satirical. I realize that the point of many people using it on Twitter and other social media is to poke fun at others and themselves. Lament having to get out of a hot shower on a cold morning? #firstworldproblems. Heartbroken that Pinterest is moving slowly, or won’t let you pin some hot, shirtless man pictures? #firstworldproblems.
In spite of how admittedly scary and overwhelmingly life can be, I find the people who honestly think they’re poor or suffering tremendously to be delusional at best and dishonest with themselves at worst.
Right now the economy is down, unemployment is higher than what it should be at 7.3 percent, and making ends meet is tough. I’m a college senior who is hopeful about finding a job after graduation but has to face the fact that right now is not a good time for recent college graduates. Many graduates cannot find jobs and are forced to move back home, in addition to figuring out how to make payments on student loans. Because I chose to go to a private university, I am starting out my career $25,000 in debt. My parents live paycheck-to-paycheck, have 25 years left on a mortgage that won’t be paid off until they are in their 70s, and will soon have to take on Parent Plus loans from sending me to college.
The United States does have an issue with poverty, which I’m defining as “unable to adequately provide one’s own shelter, food and day-to-day basic needs.” I have volunteered to help at soup kitchens and worked with impoverished people before. So when I think of someone who has nothing, those are the faces I see: a mother with one or two small children, or a man in his 20s or 30s who clearly came in from the streets for a hot meal and will be back out there that same night.
These are the kind of people who are grateful for basic neccessities, who would resent any middle-class college student complaining about Facebook moving too slowly, Starbucks screwing up an order or parents not paying for gas to fill up the SUV. Personally, as a college student from a working-class family and the first to go to college, I resent the stereotype of college students as spoiled, middle-to-upper-middle-class partiers who are having fun on Mommy and Daddy’s dime and don’t care about school. Unfortunately, a lot of people I talk to believe that to be true of all college students.
Even worse than the stereotype are those who perpetuate it. Try taking a young woman seriously who comes in carrying Starbucks coffee and a designer handbag, wearing those Ugg-ly boots and a VS Pink hoodie and yoga pants set, who complains about the cost of a textbook that she needs when her daily coffee habit for a year is double the cost of that book. Or the young man who can afford new sneakers and an ample supply of booze but complains he can’t afford the gas in his car.
I only ask that people—especially in my generation, since we’re the ones who buy into this #firstworldproblems mentality—to look seriously at themselves. Joking about daily inconveniences is one thing; honestly telling ourselves that just because things are inconvenient or not exactly as we want them right now just shows our own boredom and ignorance. And those two traits have yet to solve any problem, #firstworld or not.
