I think Maslow’s Heirarchy was pretty accurate. When you don’t have your basic needs met you can’t focus on achieving, or even wanting the needs at the top. The top stuff is fairly equivalent to first world problems I think.
I live in a “first world” country, and I have enough money to meet my basic needs, and some extra money so I can do and buy additional things. A lot of it has to do with money (which sucks) and then other factors are availability.
Most first world luxuries I could do without if I had to, but it depends how narrowly you define first world. I can get pretty annoyed when my laptop crashes. I make my living using my laptop. If I made my living farming the land I wouldn’t be so frustrated when my laptop crashes. Although, if I lost a bunch of photos I would be upset, but not so upset I would be traumatized for weeks, if just be very unhappy about it.
Not to mention I think health care and healthy living conditions should automatically be a part of the first world, and they aren’t in America. We have clean drinking water in most of the country, so that’s a plus, but we don’t have health care available for all. That’s a problem I’m very concerned about, is that a first world problem? Affording healthcare is very much on my mind as my COBRA is running out.
I can think about both at once. Basic needs and first world needs.