Yet Another Post on Perspective

I think why I write so much about perspective is because it is something I SO struggle with.

If I forget my lunch at home and I had packed some good leftovers (ya know lasagna is better the next day, right?) , I can get so sad you would seriously think my dog died.

I try to send a card to someone and realize I just had used my last stamp. Is that SO annoying to anyone else or just me? Cuz really. Then you have to remember to get stamps and then remember to mail it and 3 weeks later by the time you FINALLY get the stamp the party you were sending the invite to is already over.

Or like, my dear mother (remember I live at home and my mom still does my laundry sometimes. err.. all the time but to give me credit she says it is easier just to throw mine in with theirs) when she gets a bleach stain on my FAVORITE shirt. Like not a big one, but just big enough where you think no one will notice. So you wear it, and by 9 o'clock two people at work have already mentioned it.

I am feeling irritated just writing these things...

So. I came across this:

(FYI: We are a first world country. An example of a third world country would be Somalia, in Eastern Africa.)

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS:

~My hand is too fat to shove into the Pringles container so I am forced to tilt it.

~I didn't have a bad childhood so I can't turn my pain into art.

~I had too much food for lunch and now I'm tired.

~I have to find my own girlfriend because my country doesn't practice arranged marriages.

~I accidentally clicked I-Tunes and had to wait two minutes for it to open before I could close it again.

~My GPS made me drive through the ghetto.

~I'm trying to text while at a red light but I keep making all the greens.

~I can't hear the TV when I am eating crunchy snacks.

~My laptop is low on battery, but the charger is over there...

Now. I fully and completely acknowledge that even in our first world, wealthy country, there are still people dying of hunger. I know that for many, many people even in my city, they are struggling to fight addiction, find a job, pay the bills, finance their cancer medicine and deal with the loss of a child and I give them SO much credit for fighting through their "stuff."

When I read that first list of problems, I seriously felt like I connected with EVERY SINGLE ONE. And ya know what my friends? That is disgusting. Just yesterday I was complaining to my dad about how the TV doesn't show who is calling when the phone rings anymore. I actually RAISED my VOICE at him, blaming him for probably messing with the settings.

I started thinking about how much time each day I spend complaining about problems of "equal size" as that funny list. Like complaining when my ipad is low on battery and the charger is alllll the wayyyy in the other room.

My depressing rant is over. I think it's OKAY to feel aggravated sometimes (I mean, come on, you know you hate how long it takes I-TUNES to open) but just sometimes it's a good reminder to step back and take a look at the BIGGER picture. I think it will make that 'little' stuff not get to us so much.

PS... This is coming from someone who actually BOUGHT a plastic single size Pringles container to hold my Pringles that I pack for snacks so they don't smoosh. Heaven forbid, I eat SMOOSHED Pringles, right?)

PPS. This post makes me sound like I eat a lot of Pringles. I don't. I just went through a phase. Cheddar Cheese Pringles are bomb. :)