Wars are going badly, the global economy is tanking, we just had possibly the most bittersweet election results ever, and yet the very real, close to home problem on my mind is one that is purely first world.

You know first world problems, right? While people in other places in the world worry about where to get food, whether the water is clean, or whether their kids are gonna die from diseases that we vaccinate for and forget about over here, we fret that the line at the coffee shop is too long, that airlines have just eliminated another six inches from coach seat space so they can cram in more passengers, and that we may have accidentally hit “Reply” instead of “Forward” when we wanted to illustrate to a friend just how fucking stupid the moron who sent it is.

(There’s also pointless first world desires, like toasters that burn Hello Kitty, Darth Vader, or Cylons into your bread, that we buy gleefully, but that’s another column topic.)

The first world problem that's vexing me is almost too embarrassing to talk about: my issue is the innocuous-looking Google Reader button which helpfully offers to “Mark All As Read.” Like most geeks, I read a lot of web sites daily. Blogs, news sites, podcasts… anything with regularly updated content. I’m an addict. However, I do know that some blogs are just too prolific for me to keep up. If you’re like me and spend time on Boing Boing, The Consumerist, Life Hacker and i09, you know you can get overwhelmed with posts over a lunch hour. You go out of town and don’t read RSS over the weekend, suddenly Google Reader is telling you oh-so-helpfully that there are 1000+ unread posts. It stops counting after 1000, I guess because it’s already so bad it doesn’t matter at that point. It knows what you’re going to do.

It knows.

Google knows you’re going to play Hercules and divert a river into the Aegean Stables that is your "Unread" folder. It knows you’re going to hit the button.

“Mark All As Read.”

“Mark All As Read” is an amazing button because it can carry different weight depending on my mood. Some days it is a magical glittering fairy godmother, who swoops in with a tiara and combat boots, smiles gently, and wipes my slate clean. I can now look at the one or two posts that appear, stay on top, and never let posts pile up again (right…). Other times it has the face of Andrea Arnold from high school as she bullied me, only this time mocking me for not being good enough to read her 1000+ posts. Andrea, the “Mark All As Read” button, tells me that I’m missing invaluable information in those posts. I’m missing Life Hacking tips, news from the Creative Commons world, important updates from my friends whose personal blogs are also in my reader, and announcements of awesome sci-fi books that just came out –– oh, you wanna talk about the books that I’ve bought and not read? That pile is called “Jessica Johnson."

In short, I am missing out on life. All of my friends will have this information and be happier because of it. They may email or IM me a link they think I’ll enjoy, but isn’t it so much easier to hit “Share” in Google Reader and add one… more… post… to my 1000+?

My rivals will gain career-building information and outpace me, leaving me sitting against a concrete wall, slumped and weeping, begging for handouts of 1 GB memory sticks and lattes from passers-by. Andrea knows this, and mocks me for not keeping up with the world. She whispers, with her nasal voice, about my obsolescence at the young age of 35, how the speed reading kids can mainline this information and keep going while I lose hours in Making Light comment threads.

My first world problem here centers on me avoiding the feelings of failure while I try to streamline my life and de-clutter, which includes digital de-cluttering. “Mark All As Read” is simply a tool, like a hammer or a canister of biohazardous material; How damaging or toxic its usage is depends on me and the choices I make. Do I efficiently hammer in a nail, or do I spill the biohazard material into the town’s water supply and wonder if Spider-Man will stop me?

I’m not entirely sure if that metaphor made sense, but it was fun to write.

The honest issue simply includes keeping on top of things. If I read RSS twice a day, I won’t let it pile up. And considering how often I open email, it shouldn’t be a problem.

So before I melt into a puddle of self-loathing for my insignificant first world problems where I actually name buttons on my feed reader after my high school tormentors, I’d like to point out that there are millions out there with real third world problems, and many fine charities will accept your donation to help them out. I think I'm going to the Heifer International site to buy some bees or something.


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.