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I’ve said for years that we need to stop using the phrase, “Lucky we live Hawaii.” Some people take offense, but anyone with the least amount of emotional sensitivity can see that it’s mostly said sarcastically after discovering some new outrageous disparity or problem.

If we really are honest with ourselves, what we should be saying is that Hawaii has become a very annoying place to live, work and play.

Just think about that for a moment and recognize that the sooner we admit it, the faster we can take action to fix it.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “annoying” refers to something that “causes vexation or irritation.” For many of those of us on Oahu, particularly the professional middle class, vexation and irritation is precisely what we experience daily. 

What exactly does vexation and irritation look like?

Let’s say as a thought experiment tomorrow you wake up at 6:35 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. because you’re so burned out from work the previous day. That means you now have a 10-minute window to get cleaned up for work, feed your kids breakfast, get them dressed and ready to go to school, load your trunk with a special cake for the office baby shower and then be out the door to drive on the H-1 to get to downtown or Waikiki.

More than likely, you failed, and despite your heroic efforts at multitasking, you’re now getting into your SUV at 7:02 a.m. and backing out of your driveway to get to work. “Siri! How long will it take to get to work!” you bark at your iPhone. 

“Traffic to work is heavy, so it will take 48 minutes,” she dispassionately answers. You do the math in your head and think that could technically work, if nothing else goes wrong. You continue to glide your vehicle down your driveway, but there’s a problem. 

Your narrow street is technically meant for cars to park on only��one��side of the road, but people park on��both��sides, requiring a zig-zag maneuver. And right now, the garbage truck is at the top of the street, meaning you must sit there for another two minutes while garbage is collected.

Mind you, two Oahu minutes is not the same as two Earth minutes. Those of us who commute on the H-1 are time travelers, and two minutes of Oahu time lost might as well be 20 minutes of Earth time in terms of potential distance traveled or traffic avoided.

When you turn on the radio to hear the traffic report, you instead hear some person running for higher office talking about all the wonderful things they’re doing and who all is supporting them and on and on and you think to yourself, “If only this person was stuck in this traffic instead of giving an interview!”

Suddenly, the driver of the car in front of you on the H-1 slams their brakes. You can’t make an evasive turn left or right, so you have to push your brakes to the firewall to prevent a collision.

But  are still governing you and especially the expensive cake in your trunk, which as you come to a sudden stop is hurled into the air and against the back seat with a loud, wet “thwack!”.

That’s not good. But what’s even worse is the traffic jam now adds an extra 20 minutes to your commute time, 20 minutes that you didn’t have.

So you’re forced to hold your first meeting of the day on your phone and you find yourself agitated, testy, and unable to keep up with your coworkers or your supervisor.

You have now begun your day in the worst way possible in the worst mood possible.

You can’t present a cake at the baby shower that’s been turned into a smoothie through no fault of your own, regardless of the fact that it cost $48. So you’re going to have to find a way to use your morning 10-minute break to get something as a stand-in.

But there’s a problem. As soon as your kid got to school, they had an accident on the stairs and twisted their leg. The school nurse says to pick them up.

You curse under your breath and tell a nearby coworker what’s going on, hoping for some sympathy. Instead they tell you, “All these problems you’re mentioning involve a car. You know, you really should just use the Skyline and take The Bus.”

You want to say a not-so-nice word in reply, but parental duty calls.

By the time you get home at 6:17 p.m. after a full day of this and much more, you’re burned out, upset, easily agitated, and your spouse is, too.

You find yourself watching the news, hearing about all the things going wrong in Hawaii and you stop and ask, “What the hell is going on here?”

President Joe Biden in August talked about exactly this problem.  initiative, he promised to crack down on “unnecessary headaches and hassles to people’s days” — largely from unfair business practices — but he was on to something very important. 

The middle class deals with a lot, and stress from all these things adds up. Some things are beyond our control, others are caused by a combination of bad government, greedy corporations, racist/prejudicial structures and people packed into cities far beyond their carrying capacity.

So when you live in a place like Honolulu where everything is falling apart, every day feels like a long string of irritations. You barely make ends meet, while others with privilege excel and soar and always come out on top. You start to get very angry.

And this is something that our elected officials need to be aware of, both going into Election Day and preparing for the upcoming legislative session. Right now, candidates and incumbents alike should be holding community meetings where the public can unload on all the things upsetting them and priorities are set for what can be done about it in 2025.

If you’re going to represent us, you need to acknowledge that our sanity and happiness matters, too.

Instead of  over what spoils will be divided once you win, you should be looking for low-hanging fruit to remove unnecessary headaches and hassles to people’s days. Yes, good government is about leaving things better than you found them and looking for ways to add value to people’s lives.

There’s a reason why a grocery store manager walks the floors to see how customers are doing, or why a neighborhood restaurant owner will go table to table to check on how the food is being served or what the dining experience is like. These people care about their customers, because they’re paying and their happiness matters. 

As taxpayers and citizens, we’re paying too, not just in money, but in mental health, emotional distress, and friction with the people around us. If you’re going to represent us, you need to acknowledge that our sanity and happiness matters, too.

I know I’m not the only one who is annoyed by the lack of wins here in Hawaii. So to everyone in office or running for office, it’s time to start streamlining government for better service and improving our quality of life.