Priya Parker

I think that's all of us right now.

It's just like, oh my God.

I am a conflict resolution facilitator, and one of the core elements of conflict resolution is you imagine future problematic scenarios and you ask people about them ahead of time.

One example from marriage counseling that I love is before a couple gets married, they come together and they answer a series of questions.

And one of the questions they answer is, at what price does an item need to be before you check with the other person of whether you're going to spend that much?

And people will write down, like, one person will say $20 and look over at, you know, their partner, and their partner has, like, $2,000.

And in the same sense, when you're traveling with friends, to think about, and it's not to take the joy out of all of it, but to think about some of the structural elements.

How are we going to deal with money?

What are our norms around phone or not phone?

You're deciding what to do for dinner, and there's four of you or six of you.

So the first decision is, do we go out or do we cook at home?

It's like a decision tree.

Okay, how do you decide?

You can decide based on consensus.

You can fit the group to say, we'll go with however the most tired person is feeling, right?

Or you could say, we'll go with whoever's willing to foot the bill for everybody else, right?

But you can be playful around these decisions.

We'll go based on however many people are willing to cook.

You know, if everybody says, let's go home, but no one's willing to cook, then you could say, okay, let's go out.

So unhealthy peace is peace that's not really peace.