I’m grateful for first world problems
I love the personal finance blog arena. I like the interactions with everyone I have met and the personal growth I’ve gotten out of carving out my own little niche in it. I like reading about everyone’s plans, different risk tolerances, different priorities and even worries and concerns. It’s really easy to focus on our own lives and get stressed out about a bad work situation, a bad commute, debts, the stock market instability, and everything else that goes along with life.
Reading all these great blogs out there reminds me there are a lot of people going through the same things I am, and it’s nice having people that share a common goal – even though we all have our own plans on how to get there.
Over the weekend, I was thinking about the past year and how much things have changed, especially in relation to our own goals and priorities. With Mrs. SSC starting to apply for her job(s) this week and how a layoff would affect our lives, for better or worse, I was reminded that the majority of these worries are all first world problems. It made me really grateful for being in the position that I am and my family is.
It just made me think that I’m grateful that my biggest worry isn’t that someone will be invading my town and persecuting me and my family because our beliefs aren’t the same as theirs. I’m grateful that I’m not stressing out trying to get my family out of our home country to anyplace else because it’s safer. I’m grateful that there isn’t a civil war going on in my country and I have no way to escape it. I’m grateful I have food, fresh water, and electricity at the flip of a switch. I’m also grateful that everyone in my family is currently healthy.
If my biggest concerns are about traffic, whether or not my investments will increase soon enough to leave work sooner than “planned”, and whether or not we’ll remain a dual income household much longer, I think I’m doing okay. There are a lot of things going on in the world that make all my problems seem trivial. While it may not seem like it at the time, they kind of are pretty trivial in the bigger scheme of things. And for that, I’m grateful.
In our hectic go-go-go lives, I find it’s good sometimes to stop and just take 30 seconds to realize all of the great stuff going on in our lives. For me, it makes me feel very fortunate to be in the position I am, and for all the opportunities I’ve had to get to where I am today.
