46.

I find it difficult sometimes to balance my beliefs and being a nice person. For example, I try pretty hard to limit my usage of plastic, especially one-time-use plastics. They're the least useful and the easiest to avoid. Not using plastic bags, for instance, is incredibly easy, and it makes a real difference, because these bags are made of low-grade plastic that's (almost) impossible to recycle. So my difficulty, then, comes when other people do insist on using plastic bags. I generally try to live in a way that lets other people live their lives the way they want it. But I also see  certain things as so obvious and simple that I find it hard to let them slide. For me, using plastic bags when they're not necessary is hard to accept. But I think that it's hard to bring it up without sounding like a jugdmental asshole. And I really try not to be judgmental. I know that people have their own lives and their own priorities, and I can't judge them for not caring about the same things that I care about. Yet with something like plastic bags, I feel like a short conversation would be enough to convince most people that they really are not worth using. Yet I avoid these conversations for the sake of being pleasant. Egh.

Also, I've noticed over the past few days how annoying a bad or slow internet connection can be. And I think that's a bit bizarre. I mean, My generation is the first to see an internet connections as something we need. Every single generation before us either didn't have the internet at all, or saw it as a fun or interesting thingy; definitely not as a central part of their lives. To be so annoyed because of a suboptimal internet connection is to see a mirror image of yourself, to meet yourself in a way you don't necessarily want. We, as in my generation and those after it, might be developing a tiny internet addiction. And as it stands, I don't think that's a good thing. Of course I don't deny that the internet can be absolutely wonderful. But most of all, it seems to be a distraction. That's not surprising, considering that most online companies earn money through advertisements, which means having to gather clicks, which means having to get people's attention in any way possible. Distraction, for them, is the name of the game. Distraction equals money. So the internet, as it stands, is basically a distraction machine. And our phones are the perfect accessory to that machine. They're things we keep with us literally all the time, that vibrate any time anyone wants our attention. How much more distracting can it get? We really need to deal with this fact of our society, and find a way to keep the online distraction to a minimum, if we want to keep on living happy lives. I'm very convinced that attention breeds happiness. So lack of attention (in other words: distraction) breeds unhappiness. I don't really have a solution for any of this. I can only say that there's a problem. So there you go, you're welcome, world.