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The First-World Problem You Should Be Glad to Have

“Is not life a hundred times too short for us — to bore ourselves?”

Adam Aushaf
Mind Cafe
8 min readOct 11, 2022

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Photo by Finde Zukunft on Unsplash

If you’re reading this right now, chances are you’re a first-world citizen.

Even if you don’t actually live in a first-world country, at least you have a working internet connection and a device to access it — which means you probably have other basic needs, like food and shelter, covered as well. Presumably, your life and livelihood aren’t in immediate danger.

But does that mean you have no problems at all? No, I know, it doesn’t. I’m sure you have a few running through your head right now. If I were to guess, though, half of those problems are trivial and mundane. “First-world problems,” as we like to call them.

At their worst, these petty annoyances are never life-threatening, but merely bothersome or inconvenient. And while we like to complain about them, we usually only do so in jest. All in good fun. The very fact that we have first-world problems signifies that we have good, privileged lives.

Truth be told, there’s one first-world problem that’s very much so. One that’s especially emblematic of the human condition, and of the absurdity of existence — a problem so bad yet so good. You should be glad to have it.

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Mind Cafe
Mind Cafe

Published in Mind Cafe

Relaxed, inspiring essays about happiness.

Adam Aushaf
Adam Aushaf

Written by Adam Aushaf

No longer writing on Medium. Read my essays for free on Substack: aushaf.substack.com.

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