Page 29 - January 2020

Of course, these aren’t gigantic issues that I “Oh, I’m struggling with several first world
should go to war over. But when they all stack up problems right now.”

within 24 hours...it makes for a very unsatisfying
day. I can feel my resilience slipping. I can feel “What’s a first world problem?” (His family
the post-holiday blues becoming black & blue as is from Egypt.)
a bad attitude spreads through me like a bruise.

My outlook turns dark, my smile evaporates So, I told him. And then I told him what my
(though it is a mirage anyway), and I start making problems were—and then remembered hating
excuses to miss my Toastmasters meetings. it when volunteers did that to me (ah, totally
When I was doing time in prison, I hated it stepped in it!).

when volunteers from the outside would come
in and complain about their lives. “Uh, sorry about that . . . I don’t need to unload
“Really, you are going to come into prison and on you . . in here.”
complain about too many emails, office politics, “No problem, I get it.” He told me about the

and how you wish you didn’t have so many two times he’d gone to Egypt and how he never
distractions? Do you realize where you are?” wants to live there because of the conditions in
I was very dismissive of complainers. Now the cities. “I mean, I really landed on my feet
that I am on the outside I have empathy for here. I could have been in prison in a much

those volunteers and their first world problems... worse place…”
because I have them now!
Last night I went to the monthly Capital “Like Texas?”
Toastmasters meeting at Oregon State

Penitentiary. I didn’t want to go—I was in a “...no, like Egypt or Turkey.”
bad mood all the way to Salem. Once inside,
the meeting was delayed because of a slow line “Oh, yeah . . . not good . . . though I’ve never been
movement. I took the opportunity to talk with there.”

Farouk, a club member.
We talked for 20 minutes—both of us
“Thanks for coming,” he said. “How are you laughing at my first world problems—and I
doing?” felt much better. By the end of the meeting I

VOICES! | JANUARY 2020 29