First World Problems

HELLO CITIZENS of the free world!

 

There was a youtube video published a couple months ago that went viral by a group called TheGiftofWater called ‘First World Problems Anthem’. You’ve probably watched it already, but if you haven’t, you should blush slightly, go watch it, and return to this blog post and start reading HERE:

 

What a great video, huh? How did it make you feel? Guilty? Angry? Sad? Grateful? Embarrassed?

 

Another great way to get some perspective on your status in relation to everyone else in the world is pop over to www.globalrichlist.com and plug in your salary to see where you fit in. A shocking statistic: If you made $30,000 CDN per year, and there were only 100 people in the world, you would be the 3rd richest person in the world.

 

From that perspective, most of us are filthy, stinking rich. It kind of makes you feel like 2 of the 3 amigos in that scene where they….. oh yes, not everyone has watched that movie. Hmmm, what should I do, OH! YOUTUBE! Last link, I promise: Three Amigos – Your share of the money

 

I was reminded of this stuff after attending a conference on food safety put on by the Abbotsford Vet Clinic a few weeks ago.

 

We had the privilege of listening to Dr. Melodie Chan (@LilCowDoc) give a presentation called ‘In Food We Trust…but what foods can we trust?’

 

She talked about how everyone on this planet wants to be healthy and happy, but that is affected by the choices we are able to make. In many regions of the world there are very few choices to be made. A lot of people knowingly eat food and drink water that is hazardous for their health, and they are not unhappy, but desperate.

 

By comparison, most of us are spoiled for choice when it comes to our health and happiness. Some of the poorest people in the world would gladly drink the water out of your toilet instead of their water source, while we have thousands of drinking options available to us from bottled water to organic milk or fine wine.

 

This would be a really easy spot to throw in a preachy conclusion and call this post good, but that wouldn’t be a good thing to do. I think a lot of people get paralyzed by these facts and bury their heads in the sand. It’s easy to do, especially in our fast paced first world.  For myself, as a farmer, I don’t feel guilty about being a member of the first world. It’s a huge privilege, and it’s a gift from our ancestors who worked hard to build such a wonderful country, and it’s also a position from where we can share with those who don’t have the same choices we do.

-Peter