First World Problems

We all know this term..."first world problems". It is commonly bandied about by high-minded people who think we should all be a little more grateful for our circumstances and little less likely to complain about tiny fissures in our luxurious surroundings.

Now, I know what you imaginary readers are thinking; You're thinking "that's exactly how Den acts". Case in point, my last post had a particularly snooty take on the world's "unequal distribution of wealth".

Well, truth is, I can be quite petty when I want to be. I'm versatile that way...

In fact, to demonstrate the point, I'd like to share with you my current, most nagging, first world problem. It's the ubiquitous unevenly cut bagel. It drives me crazy. I mean, if your job is to cut bagels in half, how little effort must you expend to just slow down and get the two sides approximately equal in size?

I'm telling you, the first world will be a much happier place to live once we eradicate the unnecessary evil of the uneven bagel slice. (And make charging cords longer so we can watch iPad movies in bed when our batteries are dead).

A Sad Comment on Humanity

You can probably guess from the title what this post is about. That's right... Home Owners Associations.

I know this topic may not resonate with all imaginary readers, especially those in rural areas where the specter of these repulsive Associations is less pronounced. But this blog is for me to spew my opinions, and I happen to have one about the human shortcomings that lead to the existence of HOA's.

I find it odd that the human species evolved to thrive using social strategies, such as community agriculture, healthcare and education, yet individuals cannot live near one another without paying a full-time board of referees to resolve their disputes. And I use the term "dispute" lightly because, in this case, it includes grave matters like agreeing on what types of plants each neighbor can have in their yards, what color they can paint their front doors, and whether or not they can build a deck in their back yard. Thorny topics indeed.

There's an economic principle at the heart of the matter; the idea is that your home is more of an investment than it is a place to live, and you cannot risk the value of said investment without having some reassuring authority regulate the appearance of the neighborhood. Clearly, if Clarence down the street does not cut his grass on a regular basis, his unkempt yard could negatively affect the curb appeal of every nearby home. Possibly true, definitely absurd.

I did a quick search and learned (see for yourself: HOA statistics) that about a quarter of all Americans (including me) now live under the iron fist of an HOA. Sadly, we collectively pay nearly $100 billion per year in dues for this oversight. The average family among us pays between $200 and $300/month for the privilege of an Association that writes down how all disputes should get resolved and then steps in when anyone questions the rules.

Now, I'm no math major but I know this. The UN estimates that we could end world hunger with $116 billion (makes me wonder why we haven't done that yet, but I'll save the topic for a blog on another day). According to my calculations, we could take HOA fees for less than 14 months and completely cover the world hunger bill. Sure, if we stopped funding the HOA's, someone in your neighborhood might paint their front door a "property-value-reducing" shade of purple, but that seems like a reasonable trade-off for ending world hunger.

The unequal distribution of wealth in the world is a major problem, probably humanity's biggest current challenge. However, as I suggested in my post about relative wealth, we don't really seem very focused on reversing it. In fact, we seem much more focused on accelerating the disparity. HOA's are a visible symbol of people with a fair degree of wealth, going to great lengths, to ensure that no other person negatively affects their ongoing accumulation of even greater wealth.

The whole concept is a sad comment on humanity.

Relative Wealth: The Key to Happiness?

You know what they say... "Money can't buy happiness". Well, it turns out, like many things they say, that's only sort of true. Money does appear to buy happiness, regardless of how much you have, as long as you have relatively more of it than the people in your immediate proximity.

Don't believe me? Well, this has been very well studied and thoroughly documented in sociological study after sociological study (Robert Frank's book "Luxury Fever" for reference).  The guy with the biggest shack in the poor part of town is almost always happier than the guy with the crappiest mansion in the uppity neighborhood. Humans tend to compare themselves to their neighbors and then decide if they should feel happy about their privileged circumstances, or sad about their comparative shortcomings.

This concept has been further validated by the popularity of literature that resonates with the masses. In "King Rat", a novel by James Clavell, the author built a story around the lives of dirty, starving war prisoners, living among rats in a mud pit. The King Rat was the guy who lived in the dry corner of the pit and somehow got cigarettes from the guards. Despite his bleak existence, he was well off compared to the other prisoners in the pit and, therefore, about as happy as any free man living in comfort with relatively more wealth than his neighbors.

Unfortunately, relative wealth leads to an infinite number of "arms races" that we commonly call "keeping up with the Joneses". You cannot reach a level of income, choose to live within those means, and coast along through a happy existence if your neighbors keep aspiring to a grander lifestyle. You must keep up; otherwise, you will become relatively less wealthy and subject to the daily comparisons that defeat happiness. No one can stop climbing unless everyone stops climbing, and those near the bottom have no incentive to stop. Their very happiness depends on gaining a little relative wealth. This produces a perpetual cycle of struggle to gain wealth.

The solution? There may not be one. However, if we could all try to compare our means to our needs rather than comparing our means to our neighbor's means, that would be a step in the right direction. Simply ask yourself, are your basic needs met? If so, can you stop longing for more and start appreciating what you already have. 

It sounds simple, but we all know it is not.

Most Important Day of My Life

The most important day of my life unfolded exactly 27 years ago today.

The night before, I had driven from my apartment in Milan to Venice for an ophthalmic industry conference. As several hundred attendees wandered into the venue, I caught my first glimpse of my future wife. She was some distance away and surrounded by a pack of young Italian studs, all vying for her attention. She had a warm smile and a general air of confidence that suggested a strong character. I remember the moment well, even if I didn’t fully understand it at the time.

During a conference break, she strolled through the Exhibit Hall wearing blue-tinted contact lenses; no doubt gifted to her from some enterprising conference exhibiter who was eager to advertise his wears. In a land of near-universal brown eyes, a blue-eyed fashion statement attracts attention and she quickly garnered an audience of romantic suitors, each topping the next with lavish praise about the beauty of her blue eyes.

I found myself in this group of admirers, although I was clearly in no position to compete. I had the least swarthy complexion, no three-day stubble, and a complete lack of hip fashion. Worst of all, my limited Italian skills left me with no “game” when it came to flirtatious banter.

Unexpectedly, amid the raucous cacophony of complements, a brief instance of calm settled on the group as she glanced in my direction. It was an unexpected opportunity to engage with her directly, a stroke of good fortune that was nearly wasted on a guy with such poor command of the local language. On the spur of the moment, I conjured a simple truth from my stunted vocabulary: "Non mi piace. Sembra non posso vedere le tue occhi". Literally, “I don’t like. Seems like I can’t see your eyes.”

Luckily for me, she was (and still is) a person who deeply appreciates honesty. My brusque comment had struck the mark and left my rivals muttering under their collective breath. She and I found ourselves seated next to each other at a group dinner that evening, and then joined a spontaneous gaggle of revelers that strolled the city after dining. As the night wound down, I asked her to join me for a walk on the beach (according to lore, the literal translation of my request sounded something like: “You walk... me go... beach... now together... yes?”). She politely declined my eloquent inquiry.

She returned to Rome where I sent her some grammatically ambiguous letters and we began to get to know one another through the geographic and language barriers that separated us. Eventually, I visited her in Rome and, as we grew closer, we would sometimes take weekend trains to meet in Florence, the halfway point between Rome and Milan. Alas, I was highly focused on my career and was not willing to elevate a romantic relationship to the top rung of my life ladder. She appreciated my brutal honesty about my life priorities, but dumped me just the same.

We both moved on to other relationships over the next couple of years but would see each other platonically whenever I was in Rome. Once, during a platonic walk following a platonic dinner, I naturally reached out and took her hand. It wasn’t a premeditated gesture; it just felt right at the time. She reciprocated naturally; holding my hand warmly in hers and suddenly, it wasn’t platonic anymore.

Over the next year, our relationship got more serious and she sought a transfer to Milan so we could be together more frequently. Although I still had strong career aspirations, I knew she was special and I was eager for a more serious commitment. As luck would have it, during that same time period, I was offered a substantial promotion for an assignment in Hong Kong; it was a professional “dream come true” and I enthusiastically accepted it. The assignment would involve heavy travel that we both understood would not be conducive to relationship building. We spent the weekend together in Rome before our second amicable split and then went fondly on our separate ways.

From Hong Kong, I sent her a letter with some photos of our final time together, along with my new contact information, but I never heard back. I knew that splitting had been difficult for both of us and I interpreted her silence to mean that she would find it easier if we just broke off the relationship cleanly. It turns out that she never received my letter and interpreted my silence as a signal that I was the one seeking a clean break. A full year passed without any communication between us.

At one point, in the course of preparing for a business trip to Italy, I decided to call her. The only phone number that I had for her was at her office; I dialed it and reached her immediately. This was perhaps the second most important day of my life as, when my call arrived, she was packing her desk on her final day of work. Had I waited another hour to call, I may never have spoken to her again.

Fast forward: we met up in Rome and rekindled our relationship. In 1998, I transferred from Hong Kong back to the USA, stopping in Rome to pick her up. We landed in Maine, bought a car, and drove it to California in accordance with the old adage that “if you can survive driving across the country together, then you can survive being married to one another”. We got married the next spring and promptly pro-created three times.

So that's how it all played out after April 24^th, 1993, the day I first laid eyes on Elisabetta, the most important day of my life.