As humans live in slums, why do I complain about my privileged life?

By David McElroy · August 18, 2017

I’ve had a terrible day. It’s Friday evening after work. I’ve just eaten dinner. I’m sitting in a restaurant feeling frustrated and anger — partly at myself, partly at others.

I’m unhappy about multiple things. I’m lonely. I want to quit my job. I miss someone. I feel alienated from the people around me. I find myself thinking that life hasn’t been fair to me. (I could tell you why. I have plenty of reasons.)

And then I randomly saw this photograph.

Gautam Basu took this photo of an Indian mother and two of her children. The mother is dressing a daughter while a smaller child clings to her. The pipe in which they’re standing is their home.

Basu is a talented amateur photographer who was named Environmental Photographer of the Year in 2011 by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management. This photo was one of the pictures for which he was honored as he captured the real lives of the poor in India.

This family lives in an Indian area called the Pipe Slum. The sections of pipe are pieces that were abandoned after a local city finished a water project. The rest of the slum is shanties built around the pipes. The sections of pipe were waste debris, but they’re everything for the people who live there.

I wasn’t looking for this photo. Even as I see it now, I’d rather not see it. I would rather wallow in my own hurt and anger and discontent.

But as the photo forces me to compare myself to these people, I find it hard to complain.

To see how these people live doesn’t change the things that are making me whine tonight. It doesn’t make me happy. It doesn’t give me the things I crave most. It doesn’t fix the problems of someone I love. It doesn’t give me a path to the productive and creative future I need.

But it does remind me how privileged I am.

I just ate a fine meal and I could have eaten pretty much anything I chose. I will leave here and go to a home that isn’t as fine as I’d like it to be, but it’s safe and secure. It has a roof that keeps me dry. I have air conditioning in the summer and sufficient heat in the winter. I have a fine bed on which to sleep. I have plenty of nice clothes. I have a dependable and comfortable car to get me to the places I need to do.

I worked today at a job that gives me enough income to provide for a middle-class life. I’m employed in an air-conditioned office at work which isn’t physically taxing. I have to privilege of working with people who treat me well and who generally work well together.

I was privileged enough to grow up in a family and a culture where education was expected and provided without question. I am trained in how to act in my society in ways that cause people to treat me with respect.

My life is terrible — inside my worst fears and hurts — but it is the height of luxury by the standards of billions of people around this globe — including the mother and children in this photo.

The fact that some people have things worse than I do doesn’t change anything for me. I still hurt about the same things. I still fear the same things. I still crave the same things.

But how can I whine and feel sorry for myself when I have so much? More importantly, I have the resources and possibilities to change my life. Over time, I can fix much of what’s wrong for me. If I lived in an open concrete pipe in a slum, I might not know where my next meal would come from, much less have the realistic possibility of finding the future love and security which I care so much about.

I don’t feel guilty for having a better life than billions of people do. I would love to have a way to help them pull themselves out of extreme poverty, but I don’t apologize for the middle class American life to which I’ve been born.

But I am vividly aware that I have privileges that many billions of people will never have. Knowing that doesn’t change anything for me, but it reminds me how very fortunate I am to have a future where I can write my own story and change my own life — while I live in absolute luxury by the standards of the world and the standards of human history.

I have to remember not to feel sorry for myself. I have to remember to take advantage of the awesome privileges I’ve been given — and I have to take advantage of them in order to create the love and life and future of my dreams.

I’m thankful to an Indian photographer and an impoverished Indian family for reminding me of that.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

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Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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