While flying on the eight-hour flight that stood between me and my summer vacation, of course I was excited. But quickly into the flight, I realized this was looking like it would be a miserable seven-and-a-half more hours. The plane was cramped even for an airplane and in retrospect, the airline was sketchy. There was even a moment where I wondered if I was claustrophobic and was going to have a panic attack. Sure, I tend to be dramatic but I stand by that this was a legitimate concern.

Anyways, picture a tiny, over-cramped plane for eight hours. It's okay though, you think to yourself to keep a positive mindset. It's uncomfortable but you can survive. Then, right as if on cue, the chair in front of you slowly leans all the way back. Yup, basically laying in your lap.

So I spent the next five hours—well, hyperventilating—but being annoyed about the fact that if everyone were to have stayed happily within their own space, the flight would have been fine. You wouldn't resent the person in front of you and be uncomfortable. You wouldn't be affected, so you would be fine. And this all may have started with one inconsiderate person, and the person behind him who figured an eye for an eye would do.

If you grew up in catholic school, you probably remember "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" being the motto to live by. You also probably can't remember what bible verse it came from but you know it's somewhere in there. But I think as a kid, this quote got a little twisted in its meaning in my mind. I figured that it meant that if I'm nice to someone, they'll be nice to me. It took me an oddly long time to realize how completely wrong that is because even sitting in this squished plane, I thought about how I better get some good karma for what was really just having common courtesy.

After all, isn't doing something nice about the intentions behind your actions?

So in this painfully long plane ride, with seven out of the eight hours with a stranger laying so close to me I feel she should have taken me out to dinner first, I didn't do that to the person behind me. Partially because I always have a fear that that one person that you piss off will be the crazy person who comes after you, but mostly because I realized that the girl in front of me was not going to miraculously see that she was being rude just because I chose to keep my seat up, but that's not the person behind me's fault.

Moral of the—very long—story: Suck it up and stop the ripple effect of mean people in the world lying their chairs all the way back.

Lesser moral of the story: Don't fly some sketchy international airline that you don't know how to pronounce otherwise you'll spend the whole flight overthinking life issues. Just don't do it.