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Advice on how to build a healthy relationship.

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Advice on how to build a healthy relationship.

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Advice from 7 TED speakers on creating better connections.
"Why don't I feel closer to my parent/sibling/friend/co-worker?"
It's a question that many of us have pondered at some point, and it usually comes out of our desire to feel more connected to the real VIPs in our life: that is, the people we care about, the people we share DNA with and/or the people we spend a lot of time with. There are a number of reasons - such as timing, competing commitments, differences of opinion, geography - why emotional distance can creep into the most important bonds. Here's advice from seven TED speakers to help bridge some of them. Warning to the emotionally squeamish: Yes, we're entering touchy-feely territory. But we can promise that none of these tips will hurt, and they could even make your relationships stronger.

1. Accept imperfection.

Brené Brown counseled patients for a decade before she began doing research. The area she chose to study? Connection. As she explains in one of her TED Talks, "By the time you're a social worker for 10 years, what you realize is that connection is why we're here."

After conducting her interviews on connection, she divided subjects into two rough groups: those who had a strong sense of love and belonging and those who did not. What did people in the former group have in common? One of the most significant traits was "the courage to be imperfect," says Brown, professor of social work at the University of Houston. "They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others."

Think about it: At times when you've felt closely bonded to someone, how much were you worrying about coming across in a certain way? Conversely, at moments when you've been focused on someone else's shortcomings - or your own - how close have you felt to that person? This insight can apply to different kinds of relationships, from your family to your professional colleagues. When you're at work, for example, try to notice when a critical inner voice is keeping you from connecting with others, and also recognize how much you might gain by revealing your vulnerability.
Watch Brene Brown's TEDxHouston talk here:
2. Show up.

It's not just your laptop - you probably have too many open browser tabs in your mind, too, says life coach Charnita Arora. If you doubt that, recall your last few encounters with other people you'd like to be closer to. Then, suggests Arora, ask yourself: "Do the people I love feel loved?"

The next time you're with someone who's important to you, Arora says to remind yourself: "I will spend these five minutes completely offering my true presence to this person." Listen to what they're saying, and try to refrain from judging or rehearsing what you'll say next. Look them directly in the eyes. How do they look compared to the last time you met? What about the first time?

This is no five-minute miracle cure for achieving intimacy. After all, you can't control other people's browser tabs or anything else that's going on in their minds or their lives. But you can still bring your whole self to the moments that matter.
Watch Charnita Arora's TEDxThaparUniversity talk here:
3. Make some space for solitude.

"Solitude? I thought this story was about being closer," you might be wondering. MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who studies technology and the self, believes alone time is essential if we want intimacy in our lives.

"Solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to other people and form real attachments," she explains. "When we don't have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. When this happens, we're not able to appreciate who they are." And if we can't see them as real people, the more likely we are to look at them transactionally (more on that below) and view them as objects who can deliver us the things we want.

What's more, spending time apart from others can give us the time we need to reflect on what matters most to us and space to recharge our creative and emotional energies.
Watch Sherry Turkle's TED talk here:
4. Identify whether you're a giver, taker or matcher.

Our relationships aren't built instantly; instead, they develop and evolve from all of the interactions we have with other people. And if you want to be closer to someone, you might look at how you're approaching these exchanges, however minor they may be. Wharton School of Business organizational psychologist Adam Grant specializes in studying workplace behavior and categorizes people into three types: Givers (people who are constantly trying to help someone), Takers (those who are focused on what they might receive from the exchange) and Matchers (those try to keep an even balance of give and take). He says, "The more often people are helping and sharing their knowledge and providing mentoring, the better organizations do on every metric."

But this idea isn't limited to the workplace. The more you can give to other people in any aspect of your life, the closer people will feel to you. Takers who ask "What can you do for me?" have a more difficult time building relationships because they are too self-serving and ungenerous.

Grant points to serial entrepreneur Adam Rifkin as a successful example of someone who has mastered the art of giving by doing "five-minute favors." Finding small ways to add value to others' lives - from making an introduction to saying a thank you and meaning it - can strengthen your bonds.
Watch Adam Grant's TED@IBM talk here:
5. Give up on old grudges and outdated beliefs.

Sometimes in life, it's not until the worst happens - death, illness, divorce, job loss - that we make it a priority to reassess our relationships, to cultivate the ones we already have and to mend ones that have been broken.

But, says wellness specialist Elizabeth Lesser, "you don't have to wait for a life-or-death situation to clean up the relationships that matter to you, to offer the marrow of your soul and to seek it in another." She experienced this firsthand when her sister needed a bone marrow transplant for a rare blood cancer - and Lesser was a match. The illness motivated the sisters to address their relationship with the help of therapy, uncovering years of stories and assumptions about each other, as she puts it, "until all that was left was love."

Building closer relationships can involve the hard work of recognizing years of long-held beliefs, committing to honesty, and wiping away old grudges. But, as Lesser says, "We can be like a new kind of first responder ... the one to take the first courageous step toward the other."
Watch Elizabeth Lesser's TEDWomen talk here:
6. Talk through your differences.

Particularly in today's climate, political differences can create hard-to-mend rifts between family members, friends and colleagues. But instead of settling for relationships that atrophy and wither, it's possible to take a cue from two friends who have tactics for making it work.

Best friends Caitlin Quattromani and Lauran Arledge have always been on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and they've chosen to engage in honest dialogue about topics like attending the Women's March and voting for Donald Trump. How? By not taking the other person's comments or opinions as a personal affront to their own values and beliefs. The two women have learned to "replace our ego and our desire to win with curiosity, empathy and a desire to learn," says Arledge.

The essential ingredients to maintaining their bond are respect and curiosity. What's been critical for the women is to feel - and act - as if their relationship always comes first, while elections and issues will come and go. "We have made the commitment to each other that our friendship is way more important than either of us being right or winning a conversation about politics," says Quattromani.
Watch Caitlin Quattromani's and Lauran Arledge's TEDxMileHigh talk here:
7. Share something new.

Who has time anymore for hours-long phone calls or long afternoon brunches? There are so many demands competing for our attention that it's often easy for relationships to fall to the end of the to-do list. But maintaining them doesn't have to be exhausting.

Actress and activist Jane Fonda has found that a little attention can go a long way. She makes an effort to plan "play dates" with her friends - but between get-togethers, she'll mails them books she thinks they'll enjoy, giving them a new thing to talk about and a new common bond.
Watch Jane Fonda's and Lily Tomlin's TEDWomen conversation here:

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"Why don't I feel closer to my parent/sibling/friend/co-worker?" It's a question that many of us have pondered at some point, and it usually comes out of our desire to feel more connected to the real VIPs in our life: that is, the people we care about, the people we share DNA with and/or the people we spend a lot of time with.

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What makes a good relationship...consent

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What makes a good relationship...consent

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"I didn't want to spend the evening with your dad. I really wanted that time to talk to you." "Well, I didn't know that when I invited him." "You should have asked me."
This argument I once had with a partner is one we've all probably had in some relationship or another - because it really boils down to the following dialogue:

"I didn't consent to that!"

"I assumed you'd be okay with it!"

And this kind of discussion isn't always referring to anything sexual.

When we hear the word "consent," we usually think of sexual consent. But there's actually a whole host of things outside the bedroom that people all too often do without consent - and our culture needs to acknowledge that they're harmful as well.

Most of us have probably at some point done something without another person's consent because we simply didn't think to ask for it. That's why we all sometimes need a reminder that, when in doubt, only a "yes" is a "yes" - to anything.
We should never assume anyone is okay with anything, whether that's a sexual act, a group activity, a topic of conversation, or a financial decision that affects them.
Fortunately, in recent years, sexual consent has become a more common topic of discussion in the media, schools, and everyday conversation.

People are beginning to understand that consent isn't given just because someone hasn't said "no," that it can be revoked at any time, and that consenting to something once doesn't mean you've automatically consented to doing it again.

And that's a good thing.
But one way we can take these discussions a step further is by applying the principles of sexual consent to other situations.
Some people, including Everyday Feminism's comic artist Alli Kirkham, have pointed out that many principles of consent already seem intuitive to us in a number of non-sexual scenarios. For example, after we borrow an item from someone, we don't assume we can take it again without asking.

However, a lot of us could still work on practicing consent outside the bedroom.

Because many of the goals we have in mind when we practice sexual consent - like making others feel safe, comfortable, and like their desires matter - are goals we have in other areas of our lives.

Sex without consent is rape and taking money without consent is stealing, but other actions taken without consent don't have names, and they can also put people in uncomfortable situations or make them feel violated.

Yet there are many situations where our culture considers it okay to push others into activities they're not enthusiastic about or make decisions that affect others without consulting them.

So here are some ways we can better practice consent in situations that don't involve sex.

1. Get Everyone's Input Before Planning Group Activities

Many of us have had friends, roommates, or family members tell us what we're doing without consulting us first. This can unknowingly pressure people into situations that make them uncomfortable.
While it's fine to invite someone to a pre-planned event like a party (so long as they have the complete power to decline your invitation!), you should get their input on anything you expect them to participate in.
For example, if you're planning a family vacation, ask if everyone's happy with the location before getting the plane tickets. If you're in charge of making dinner for your roommates, ask if everyone likes your dish before buying the ingredients. Or, if you're planning to go out that night, make sure your friends are happy with the destination.

Even if the movie you've downloaded or the restaurant you've chosen is a crowd favorite, someone may have reasons for disliking it that you couldn't anticipate. Maybe someone finds a scene in the movie too upsetting, or maybe someone has dietary restrictions or preferences you didn't know about.

One characteristic of consent is that it must be informed. Before someone can consent to something, they need to understand what they're consenting to.

When someone finds themselves in a situation they didn't give informed consent to, it can be uncomfortable to get out, especially if they're afraid of offending the person who invited them.

Even if everyone does approve of what you've planned, planning it without their input can make them feel unimportant.
Asking people what they want to do in advance, on the other hand, conveys that their enjoyment is a priority for you.
Whether it's a date night or a family outing, shoot the person or group a text to see if what you have in mind is okay or if they have anything in mind themselves. They might even offer some good suggestions!

2. Don't Reveal Personal Information About Anyone Without Their Permission

We all know it's not okay to tell secrets. But even if someone hasn't prefaced a statement by whispering "I have a secret," they still may not want you to repeat it.

Even if someone has nothing to be ashamed of, they may want to keep information about themselves from others for a number of reasons, such as fear that they won't react kindly. For example, it's never okay to reveal someone's sexual orientation if they aren't out or to reveal that someone has been sexually assaulted without their permission.
It's also not okay to tell other people about problems someone else is having.
This can be difficult when these problems involve you and you want someone to confide in. It's fine and often necessary to talk about conflicts you're having with others, but try to find someone who doesn't know the other party.

I once made the mistake of venting about an argument with a significant other to a mutual friend. I thought he'd have a greater understanding of the situation than anyone else because he knew both of us.

That may have been true, but it wasn't worth it. After I revealed that I had confided in his friend, my partner felt we'd both violated his trust. I didn't have his consent to reveal details of our relationship to someone he knew. I should have vented to a friend who wasn't close with him.
It's also important to recognize that someone's decision to reveal information about themselves in one context doesn't mean they want it aired in another.
Discussing something with one group of friends doesn't mean you want all your friends to know it. And revealing someone about yourself once doesn't mean you're willing to talk about it at any given moment.

Artists, writers, and other professionals who tackle personal subject matter deal with this misunderstanding frequently.

As a writer, people often assume that if I've written about something, it's fair game to discuss with anyone. However, due to the personal topics I've written about and the harassment I've faced for writing about them, I'm hesitant to discuss them in spaces that don't feel safe to me.

A friend once introduced me to a male friend of hers by saying, "Suzannah's a great writer. Tell him about that viral article about not shaving your legs."

I wasn't comfortable reiterating my reasons for not shaving my legs to a stranger, especially a man (the demographic that harassed me the most after that article was published). I had no idea what his views were on the topic and didn't want to get into an argument.

Social media adds another layer to this issue.

When posting on someone's Facebook wall or tagging them in a post, keep in mind that many people are Facebook friends with their families and others they may want to keep certain information from - even if they've shared this information with you.

Obviously, it's impractical to go through life without ever talking about anyone you know. But before you share something about someone in person or online, consider whether they would want everyone you're addressing to know it.

3. Obtain Consent Before Engaging in Non-Sexual Forms of Touch

Consent for touching another person isn't just necessary in bed. It's also necessary for kissing, hugging, and any other form of physical contact.

This guideline is difficult to follow because our culture considers certain forms of touch necessary for polite conduct. Unfortunately, it's still commonplace for parents to make their children hug relatives and friends.
I learned the hard way, however, that hugging someone without consent just to be polite can have unintended consequences.
One night, after a date made it clear he liked me and wanted to see me again, I thought he would like it if I hugged him as I said goodbye. Instead, he froze and was reluctant to talk about why. After I pressed for an answer, he said, "Just don't do that again without my consent."

I don't know what his reason was, but some people are reluctant to hug others because they have been touched inappropriately in the past or because they simply have large personal bubbles.

Another common manifestation of disregard for consent surrounding touch is tickling. Tickling is considered a funny, cute way to tease someone, but it's actually a typically non-consensual way of making people physically uncomfortable. The fact that someone may laugh when tickled doesn't mean it's comfortable for them.

Hugging, tickling, or otherwise touching someone who doesn't want you to touch them is a violation of personal boundaries.
Only touching people with their consent also means that if you need someone to get out of your way, you should communicate this verbally.
Most people have had someone nudge them, push them, or grab them by the shoulders and move them in order to get by. Being touched out of nowhere like this can be startling as well as violating, and some people have physical or mental conditions that can make unwanted touching painful.

For example, after I sprained my elbow, it hurt when people nudged me on my injured arm to try to create more room for themselves on the train. And if someone has a history of physical or sexual abuse, unexpected touching can be emotionally traumatic.

In crowded cities, it's hard to avoid occasionally bumping into someone. But what you can do is say "excuse me" if you need to get by so that they will move by themselves, rather than physically moving them yourself.

Controlling the position of someone's body violates their autonomy over their own movements. And touching someone in any manner without their consent can make them feel like their body is not something under their control, but an object to be used for others' purposes.

It may sound silly, but it never hurt anyone to be asked "Can I hug you?" And it certainly never hurt anyone to be asked politely to move out of the way.

4. Obtain Consent Before Photographing Others

Not everybody wants to appear in an image, especially one that could be widely circulated.

Some people simply want to protect their privacy, and others don't want to come across photos of themselves due to body image concerns. For those suffering from body dysmorphia or even less extreme body image issues, seeing themselves in photographs can be extremely distressing.
Everyone's body belongs to them and them alone, so just as you shouldn't touch it without their consent, you shouldn't photograph it without their permission either.
We seem to acknowledge this when the takers of the photographs are strangers. It's considered violating to take a picture of a stranger on the street without their consent.

Yet we don't always apply this rule when the photographer and subject know each other.
We should all get to decide if somebody else owns a picture of us, no matter who that person is. We should also have the right to decide how people use images of us.
Like sharing information without consent, this problem can be exacerbated by social media. People may not want certain photographs of themselves public for personal or professional reasons. Some, for example, are Facebook friends with their bosses and may not want their superiors to see their sexy Halloween costumes or raucous Friday evenings.

Our culture also acknowledges our autonomy over how pictures of us are used in certain contexts, but not others. Media companies cannot legally reproduce photographs of someone without their permission because these images are considered the subject's property, not anyone else's to benefit from.

Though this rule is a bit different from everyday consent because companies can profit off images, the underlying principle that we shouldn't use anyone else's image for our own purposes without their permission still applies in everyday life.

5. Don't Force a Discussion Someone Doesn't Want to Have

This one can be so hard - especially when you're in a dispute with a significant other and really want to resolve it so you can relax and go to bed. But if someone doesn't feel like talking about something, it violates their boundaries to make them discuss it.
As with sexual consent, it doesn't matter if you've spoken about it before or you've already started the discussion.
Anyone can refrain from a conversation or leave at any time if it starts to make them uncomfortable. Even though feeling uncomfortable in a conversation can be positive because it means you're learning something new, it's entirely up to each individual how much they want to stretch their comfort zone.

This issue comes up not just in romantic relationships but also in friendships (your friend may be too upset to talk about their recent breakup) and family relationships (not everyone wants to tell their parents about their love lives).

When you ask someone a personal question, you can help them feel more comfortable if you preface it by saying, "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to."

It is never anyone's responsibility to satiate someone else's curiosity.

6. Don't Pressure Anyone to Accept Anything from You

Cooking for someone or buying someone a gift can put you in a vulnerable position. Your feelings may be hurt if they don't like it, and you may feel unappreciated if they don't use it.
That still doesn't make it okay to pressure someone to accept anything you've made or gotten them.
When I first learned this, it eliminated a lot of stress. I was visiting my aunt, and she made chili, a food I found disgusting at the time (though I've since come around). I assumed I had to grin and bear it so that she felt appreciated.

As I braced myself to overcome my nausea and show appreciation for my aunt's hard work, she said something that surprised me: "You don't have to eat anything you don't want."

I admitted how I really felt, she heated up some leftover pasta, and I didn't have to struggle through a dinner that made me feel queasy.

Another aunt of mine likes to buy me clothes. Though I end up liking everything she gets, she still always says, "I can exchange this if you want." This takes off the pressure to keep anything I don't want or fake enjoyment just to make her feel good - pressure that often leads people to keep things they never consented to having.
By making it clear that nobody has to feign interest in what you give them, you could save your loved ones a lot of time eating, wearing, or doing something they don't want.
If it's hard for you when the products of your labor are rejected, it helps to remember that someone's lack of enthusiasm for what you've offered doesn't indicate a lack of appreciation of your effort.

7. Decide in Advance How Expenses Will Be Split

I've had this uncomfortable experience with several groups at bars and restaurants: I order less than most of the group to save money, then someone decides we are splitting the bill evenly, and I have to pay far more than my share.

I've also experienced this predicament: I'm at lunch with a significant other who realizes they're out of money after the bill comes, leaving me to pay for both of our food.

Another common problem arises when women expect men to pay for their dates because of gender roles. Some men (and others) will be happy to foot the bill, but rather than put any pressure on them, it's more courteous to at least offer to pay for your own meal or movie ticket.

Asking someone on a date is not consenting to buying them anything (and, as an aside, letting someone buy you something is not consenting to anything that might happen after the date).

Imposing unanticipated expenses on someone can put them under financial stress.
People often make financial decisions based on how much they expect to spend, so not knowing about an expense in advance can mess up their plans.
Beyond that, people work hard for their money and should have control over when they spend it.

Someone who consents to an activity without knowing the cost, like someone who consents without knowing what the plan is, is not giving informed consent.
To avoid a situation where people are pressured to spend more than they've budgeted, tell your friends, family, or dates in advance how much something you've planned will cost and ask if that's okay, or at least try to keep the cost to a minimum.
And let them know, if it's not obvious, how you plan to split expenses. That way, they can decide if they consent to that activity with all the information necessary.

And if you and someone else have joint finances, agree in advance which purchases are okay to make and which you'd want to talk about first.

Making sure everyone's okay with how their money's being spent shows that you respect them and the work they do to make that money, which can help your loved ones feel more appreciated and less stressed.

***

It's unlikely that we'll ever exist in a utopia where everyone consents to everything that happens to them. We'll still mess up occasionally and bring up topics of conversation we didn't know would offend someone, make decisions we didn't know others would disapprove of, or make physical contact with people unintentionally.

But one way to minimize unwanted experiences is to ask for consent whenever we can, both in the bedroom and outside it.
When people don't feel pressured or forced into situations they didn't consent to, they feel empowered to make decisions about their own bodies and their lives.
And when they don't feel constrained by what others want them to do, they have the freedom to explore what they truly desire.

Whether or not we ever reach a utopic future that everyone consents to, striving toward one will create a more accommodating world for everyone.
Suzannah Weiss is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism and a New York-based writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Seventeen, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, Bustle, and more. She holds degrees in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Modern Culture and Media, and Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University. You can follow her on Twitter @suzannahweiss.

Filed Under: Tagged With: Articles, Fem 101 Posts

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7 Ways to Practice Consent Outside of the Bedroom - Everyday Feminism

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"I didn't want to spend the evening with your dad. I really wanted that time to talk to you." "Well, I didn't know that when I invited him." "You should have asked me." This argument I once had with a partner is one we've all probably had in some relationship or another - because it really boils down to the following dialogue: "I didn't consent to that!"

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How does age/experience impact our decision making?

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How does age/experience impact our decision making?

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Credit: Dreamstime.com

The more of an expert someone is, the more they should trust their gut when making decisions, new research shows.

A person's proficiency within a particular field has a positive impact on their ability to make accurate gut decisions, researchers at Rice University, George Mason University and Boston College have discovered.

"Although there's been a lot of research on the concept of intuition, there's relatively little research directly comparing whether it's best to 'trust your gut' versus taking time to make a decision," said Erick Dane, the study's lead author and assistant professor of management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business.

The results were based on two separate experiments, one in which participants rated the difficulty of basketball shots and one in which participants judged whether designer handbags were real or fake.

In the first study, 184 undergraduate students watched video clips of basketball shots taken during two college basketball games and were given 10 seconds after each shot to rate its difficulty. The students were split into either an intuitive group, where they based decisions entirely on their first impression, or an analytical group, which based decisions on a list of factors they each developed to determine the shot's difficulty.

The researchers found that intuition was more effective for students who had played at least three years of high school basketball. Specifically, in the intuitive group, those considered experts performed better on the task, while there was no significant difference in the analytical group between those with high and low expertise.

In the second study, the researchers recruited 239 undergraduate students to make decisions about whether designer handbags were authentic or counterfeit. The participants, who again were split into intuitive and analytical groups, made their decisions by looking at - but not touching - 10 designer handbags.

The intuitive group was given five seconds to view each handbag and told to base their decisions entirely on their first impression, while the analysis group was told to ignore any gut instincts and base their decisions on careful analysis.

Once again, the researchers found that intuition was more effective for those with high expertise, which was considered to be those who owned at least three Coach and Louis Vuitton handbags.

Overall, the studies found that experts significantly outperformed novices when making their decisions intuitively, but not when making their decisions analytically.

Dane warns, however, that gut decision-making isn't best in all situations.

"Tasks that can be solved through predetermined steps, like math problems, are not as conducive to intuitive decision-making as less-structured tasks, which may include certain strategic or human resource management problems," Dane said.

The research was recently published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @cbrooks76 or BusinessNewsDaily @BNDarticles. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Chad Brooks

Chad Brooks is a Chicago-based freelance writer who has nearly 15 years experience in the media business. A graduate of Indiana University, he spent nearly a decade as a staff reporter for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago, covering a wide array of topics including, local and state government, crime, the legal system and education. Following his years at the newspaper Chad worked in public relations, helping promote small businesses throughout the U.S. Follow him on Twitter.

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Why Decision-Making Improves with Experience

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The more of an expert someone is, the more they should trust their gut when making decisions, new research shows. A person's proficiency within a particular field has a positive impact on their ability to make accurate gut decisions, researchers at Rice University, George Mason University and Boston College have discovered.

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Decision Making- How Experience can HELP!

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Decision Making- How Experience can HELP!

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The psychology behind irrational decisions - Sara Garofalo

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"Whistleblowers" break the law to expose problems.  Is breaking the law in this case justified?

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"Whistleblowers" break the law to expose problems.  Is breaking the law in this case justified?

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Some people might not like his tactics, but Edward Snowden has done great things for privacy rights, says Freedom of the Press Foundation's Trevor Timm. That's why it's time for him to come home.

Some of the biggest human rights organizations in the world - the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others - recently launched a campaign calling on President Obama to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

I'm lucky enough to work with Snowden regularly. In 2014, he joined the board of directors at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on protecting the rights of journalists and whistleblowers around the world, where I serve as executive director. Late last year, we named him our board president. He is currently working on several technology projects that aim to protect journalists in dangerous places around the world, such as war zones or authoritarian regimes. He already released a research project that aims to make a safer and more secure cell phone earlier this summer, and we plan on making some more announcements soon.

So with the campaign to pardon him picking up steam, I thought it might be a good time to look back on all of the good Snowden has done for our privacy rights.

One of Snowden's first public appearances after he came forward as the whistleblower who revealed the US government's vast and secret surveillance network was at TED in Vancouver, in 2014. TED curator Chris Anderson held an illuminating half-hour conversation with Snowden, in which he articulated why he decided to come forward and reveal to the public what our government was secretly doing under our name.

The public has gotten to know him for the person that he is: thoughtful, articulate, empathetic, passionate, and someone who cares deeply about the rights of every citizen.

Since then, a lot has happened as a direct result of the disclosures he made to the Guardian and the Washington Post - both of which would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service. A federal appeals court ruled the NSA's mass phone surveillance - the once-secret program that tracked every single phone call made in the US - was illegal. In June 2015, Congress, despite its inability to agree on virtually any issue facing our country, passed the first reform of the United States' intelligence agencies since the 1970s. And his revelations shepherded in a sea change in public opinion about online privacy.

But his impact has probably most been felt in the technology sector: tech giants such as Apple and Facebook have started encrypting billions of people's communications by default, providing a key protection that not only protects citizens against mass surveillance by governments around the world, but also acts as a bulwark against the sort of cybersecurity risks that seem to make headlines daily.

Snowden has also become an accomplished public speaker, keynoting conferences around the world. In the process, the public has gotten to know him for the person he is: thoughtful, articulate, empathetic, passionate and someone who cares deeply about the rights of every citizen.

Naturally, a lot of people - even those who are sympathetic to Snowden - have suggested that if he truly is a whistleblower he should come back to the United States and make his case to a jury. Unfortunately, because of the draconian and unjust law he is charged under, the Espionage Act, this is impossible. Because of the way the law is written - it was meant for World War I spies, not journalists' sources - a public interest defense is not allowed. He would be barred by the judge from telling the jury his motives for informing the American public. Neither would he be able to tell them how much the American public has benefitted from his leaks, nor that there was no evidence of harm to national security due to his actions.

Right now, his best hope lies in a pardon from President Obama in his final months in office. While we know the chances of a pardon are low, we also know that President Obama is looking towards his legacy. By considering a pardon for Snowden, he could start to reverse one of the most disappointing aspects of his presidency: the record number of prosecutions his Justice Department has conducted of whistleblowers. (As a 2016 TED Fellow, I gave a TED talk on this subject earlier this year.)

If you agree with me that it's past time to pardon Snowden, you can make your voice heard by joining the effort and asking people to sign the petition at the Pardon Snowden campaign website. But if you'd like to do more, contact me directly. We can add your name to the high-profile supporters list, which includes the likes of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, author Joyce Carol Oates and many others.

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Why Obama should pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

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Some of the biggest human rights organizations in the world - the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others - recently launched a campaign calling on President Obama to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. I'm lucky enough to work with Snowden regularly.

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When is it OK to break the law?  When it's required!

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When is it OK to break the law?  When it's required!

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Image credit: Google

When to follow the rules and when to violate them? When to preserve beautiful order and when to flirt with anarchy?

A few years ago, my wife and I were readying ourselves for bed when the most horrifying sound came from our son's bedroom: the sound of a young child coughing and struggling to breathe. I arrived in his bedroom first, so I got first crack at failing to figure out what was going on and how to fix it. A morbid feeling of helplessness climbed up the back of my throat as I held my son; his mind was obviously racing to process the transition from peaceful sleep to now being awake and unable to breathe. After a minute or so of trying to calm him down to no avail, we called our neighbor to come sit with our still-somehow-sleeping daughter, jumped in the car, and raced off toward the Children's Hospital that was fortunately located nearby. (Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing more serious than a bad first case of croup.)

Several laws were broken during the course of that short drive: speed limits, car seat requirements (my wife held our frightened, gasping son in her lap), lane change regulations, stop sign commands. The law makes no exception for taking these actions in the event of an emergency. Here in Ohio, for example, if you are responding to an emergency in an official vehicle equipped with a flashing light visible from 500 feet away and an audible siren, the traffic laws largely don't apply to you. But, if you're a private citizen driving a Honda, the fact that you are responding to an emergency doesn't exempt you from the rules.

What kind of father would I have been if I wasn't willing to break the law anyway in that situation?

If I had insisted my wife buckle our gasping son in his car seat the backseat instead of holding him tightly and giving him as much comfort through connection as possible?

If I had obeyed the 25 mph limit in our neighborhood, coming to a complete standstill at every stop sign?

If I had maintained the prescribed distance behind the car in front of me and signaled for the prescribed period of time before changing lanes?

And yet, if a police officer had tried to pull me over that night as I raced to the hospital, I have little doubt I would not have been ticketed once I finished ignoring his lights and sirens and continued speeding to the emergency room anyway. A human officer would have recognized the situation and done what the dispassionate law would not: ignore the rules and my breaking of them.
What if the car in my garage that night had been a self-driving autonomous car?
It turns out that a major hurdle on the journey towards safer roads through autonomous cars is one unforseen, counterintuitive problem:

The self-driving car, that cutting-edge creation that's supposed to lead to a world without accidents, is achieving the exact opposite right now: The vehicles have racked up a crash rate double that of those with human drivers.

The glitch?

They obey the law all the time, as in, without exception. This may sound like the right way to program a robot to drive a car, but good luck trying to merge onto a chaotic, jam-packed highway with traffic flying along well above the speed limit. It tends not to work out well.

What does this have to do with leadership? Everything, if you intend to lead a group of people and expect them to think and solve the unforseeable problems that every organization encounters. It is easy to succumb to the fears and uncertainty from trusting people to know when to follow the rules, and when they should break them in order to achieve the more important mission of the organization. As a leader, who would argue with this concern?

"It's a sticky area. ... If you program them to not follow the law, how much do you let them break the law?"

And yet, to do otherwise is to give rule compliance precedence over mission completion, obedience over results.

In his book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek relays the story of an FAA air traffic controller who chose to break the rules regarding airspace management in order to guide an airliner in distress down to the ground as quickly as possible. Nobody reading the story would argue this air traffic controller should have acted otherwise and blindly followed the rules. Yet, when it comes to our own people in our own teams, the question bedeviling the programmers of the Google Self-Driving Car project often screams the loudest: how much do you let them break the law?

The answer, says Sinek, is simple: as much as they need to in order to do the right thing ... and setting the environment up for that to occur is THE task of leadership:

The responsibility of a leader is to provide cover from above for their people who are working below. When the people feel that they have the control to do what's right, even if it sometimes means breaking the rules, then they will more likely do the right thing. Courage comes from above. Our confidence to do what's right is determined by how trusted we feel by our leaders.

If good people are asked to work in a bad culture, one in which leaders do not relinquish control, then the odds of something bad happening go up. People will be more concerned about following the rules out of fear of getting in trouble or losing their jobs than doing what needs to be done. And when that happens, souls will be lost.

Lead people who will break the rules at times as they focus on accomplishing something more important, or issue commands to automatons who will follow the rules no matter what. Creativity vs control: you choose.

Lance Salyers currently serves as a corporate executive after a first career as a prosecuting attorney. He blogs about the fundamentals of people-focused leadership at his website:Leading With IDEAS.

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Image credit: Google When to follow the rules and when to violate them? When to preserve beautiful order and when to flirt with anarchy? A few years ago, my wife and I were readying ourselves for bed when the most horrifying sound came from our son's bedroom: the sound of a young child coughing and struggling to breathe.

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WHEN is it justified, then, for the citizen to act as his own legislator, and to decide that he will or will not obey a given law?

An answer that covers all the issues this question raises cannot be given here, nor can a set of principles be proposed that will allow anyone to make automatic and infallible judgments concerning the legitimacy or illegitimacy of specific acts of civil disobedience. Such judgments require detailed knowledge of the facts of specific cases, and such knowledge is often unavailable to the outsider. Nevertheless, it is possible to indicate some of the principal issues that are raised by civil disobedience, some of the more common mistakes that are made in thinking about these issues, and, at least in outline, the approach that one man would take toward such issues.

We can be

IT is possible, however, to take a mucn more moderate and plausible version of this position, and many quite reasonable people do. Such people concede that disobedience to the law can sometimes be legitimate and necessary under a despotic regime. They argue, however, that civil disobedience can never be justified in a democratic society, because such a society provides its members with legal instruments for the redress of their grievances.

This is one of the standard arguments that is made, often quite sincerely, against the activities of people like supporters of the Congress of Racial Equality, who set about changing laws they find objectionable by dramatically breaking them. Such groups are often condemned for risking disorder and for spreading disrespect for the law when, so it is maintained, they could accomplish their goals a great deal more fairly and patriotically by staying within the law, and confining themselves to the courts and to methods of peaceful persuasion.

Now it is perfectly true, I believe, that there is a stronger case for obedience to the law, including bad law, in a democracy than in a dictatorship. The people who must abide by the law have presumably been consulted, and they have legal channels through which to express their protests and to work for reform. One way to define democracy is to say that it is a system whose aim is to provide alternatives to civil disobedience. Nevertheless, when applied to the kind of situation faced, say, by CORE, these generalizations, it seems to me, become cruelly abstract.

THE basic fallacy in the proposition that, in a democracy, civil disobedience can never be justified, is that it confuses the ideals or aims of democracy with the inevitably less than perfect accomplishments of democracy at any given moment. In accordance with democratic ideals, the laws of a democracy may give rights and powers to individuals which, in theory, enable them to work legally for the elimination of injustices.

In actual fact, however,

Worse still, the majority may have demonstrated, in a series of free and honest elections, that it is unwavering in its support of what the minority regards as an unspeakable evil. This is obviously the case today in many parts of the South, where the white majority is either opposed to desegregation or not so impatient to get on with it as is the Negro minority. Are we prepared to say that majorities never err? If not, there is no absolutely conclusive reason why we must invariably give the results of an election greater weight than considerations of elementary justice.

IT is true, of course, that one swallow does not make a summer, and that the test of legal democratic processes is not this or that particular success or failure, but rather the general direction in which these processes move over the long run. Still, the position that violation of the law is never justifiable so long as there are legal alternatives overstates this important truth. It fails to face at least three important exceptions to it.

In the first place, dramatic disobedience to the law by a minority may be the only effective way of catching the attention or winning the support of the majority Most classic cases of civil disobedience, from the early Christians to Gandhi and his supporters, exemplify this truth. Civil disobedience, like almost no other technique, can shame a majority and make it ask itself just how far it is willing to go, just how seriously it really is committed to defending the status quo.

SECOND, there is the simple but painful factor of time. If a man is holding you down on a bed of nails, it is all very well for a bystander to say that you live in a great country in which there are legal remedies for your condition, and that you ought, therefore, to be patient and wait for these remedies to take effect. But your willingness to listen to this counsel will depend, quite properly, on the nature of the injury you are suffering.

Third, it is baseless prejudice to assume that observance of the law is always conducive to strengthening a democratic system while disobedience to the law can never have a salutary effect. A majority's complacent acquiescence in bad laws can undermine the faith of a minority in the power of democratic methods to rectify manifest evils; yet a vigorous democracy de

Disobedience to bad laws can sometimes jolt democratic processes into motion. Which strengthens one's hope for democracy more - the behavior of the Negroes in Birmingham who broke municipal ordinances when they staged their protest marches, or the behavior of the police, using dogs and fire hoses to assert their legal authority?

ANOTHER factor should also be taken into account. In our Federal system, there are often legitimate doubts concerning the legal validity, under our Constitution, of various state or local ordinances. Disobedience to these laws is in many cases simply a practical, though painful, way of testing their legality. But even where no thought of such a test is involved, there is often present a moral issue which no one can easily dodge-least of all the man whose personal dignity and self‐respect are caught up in the issue.

A citizen caught in a conflict between local laws and

Yet there is another side to the story. It would be a mistake to conclude from what has been said that civil disobedience is justified, provided only that it is disobedience in the name of higher principles. Strong moral conviction is not all that is required to turn breaking the law into service to society.

Civil disobedience is not simply like other acts in which men stand up courageously for their principles. It involves violation of the law. And the law can make no provision for its violation except to hold the offender liable to punishment. This is why President Kennedy was in such a delicate position last spring at the time of the Negro demonstrations in Birmingham. He gave many signs that, as an individual, he was in sympathy with the goals of

We may admire a man like

In short, if anybody ever has a right to break the law, this cannot be a legal right under the law. It has to be a moral right against the law. And this moral right is not an unlimited right to disobey any law which one regards as unjust. It is a right that is hedged about, it seems to me, with important restrictions.

FIRST of all, the exercise of this right is subject to standards of just and fair behavior. I may be correct, for example, in thinking that an ordinance against jaywalking is an unnecessary infringement of my rights. This does not make it reasonable, however, for me to organize a giant sit‐down strike in the streets which holds up traffic for a week. Conformity to the concept of justice requires that there be some proportion between the importance of the end one desires to attain and the power of the means one employs to attain it.

When applied to civil diso

Although violence may be no part of the intention of those who practice civil disobedience, the risks of violence are present, and are part of what must be taken into account when a program of civil disobedience is being contemplated.

In short, civil disobedience is a grave entefprise. It may sometimes be justified, but the

NOR is this the only limitation on the individual's moral right to disobey the law. The most important limitation is that his cause must be a just one. It was right for General de Gaulle to disobey Marshal Pétain; it was wrong for the commanders of the French Army in Algeria, 20 years later, to disobey General de Gaulle.

Similarly, if it is absolutely necessary, and if the consequences have been properly weighed, then it is right to break the law in order to eliminate inequalities based on race. But it can never be necessary, and no weighing of

In sum, the goals of those who disobey the law have to lie at the very heart of what we regard as morality before we can say that they have a moral right to do what they are doing.

BUT who is to make these difficult decisions? Who is to say that onE man's moral principles are right and another man's wrong? We come here to the special function that civil disobedience serves in a society. The man who breaks the law on the ground that the law is immoral asks the rest of us, in effect, to trust him, or to trust those he trusts, in preference to the established conventions and authorities of our society.

He has taken a large and visible chance, and implicitly asked us to join him in taking that chance, on the probity of his personal moral judgment. In doing so, he has put it to us whether we are willing to take a similar chance on the probity of our own judgment.

Thomas Hobbes, who knew the trouble that rebels and dissenters convinced of their rectitude can cause, once remarked that a man may be convinced that God has commanded him to act as he has, but that God, after all, does not command other men to believe that this is so. The man who chooses to disobey the law on grounds of principle may be a saint, but he may also be a madman. He may be a courageous and lonely individualist, but he may also merely be taking orders and following his own crowd. Whatever, he may be, however, his existence tends to make us painfully aware that we too are implicitly making choices, and must bear responsibility for the ones we make.

THIS, indeed, may be the most important function of those who practice civil disobedience. They remind us that the man who obeys the law has as much of an obligation to look into the morality of his acts and the rationality of his society as does the man who breaks the law. The occurrence of civil disobedience can never be a happy phenomenon; when it is justified, something is seriously wrong with the society in which it takes place.

But the man who puts his conscience above the law, though he may be right or he may be wrong, does take personal moral responsibility for the social arrangements under which he lives. And so he dramatizes the fascinating and fearful possibility that those who obey the law might do the same. They might obey the law and support what exists, not out of habit or fear, but because they have freely chosen to do so, and are prepared to live with their consciences after having made that choice.

This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com

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WHEN is it justified, then, for the citizen to act as his own legislator, and to decide that he will or will not obey a given law? An answer that covers all the issues this question raises cannot be given here, nor can a set of principles be proposed that will allow anyone to make automatic and infallible judgments con­cerning the legitimacy or illegitimacy of specific acts of civil disobedience.

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How does the meaning of love differ from person to person?

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How does the meaning of love differ from person to person?

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When Angela Fama set out on a roadtrip for her latest art project called What Is Love, she never expected it would turn her world upside down.

Fama converted her 1977 motor-home into a traveling photo studio and headed off across North America. She travelled 17,000 kilometres and stopped in 20 cities and towns along the way. At each location, Fama would invite people into her studio to take their photos and ask them "What is your definition of love? What does love mean to you?"

More than 300 people considered and answered her question, and Fama documented their often surprising responses in photographs and audio recordings.

At age 30, Fama suffered a brain injury. As she was healing, she had no filters between her thoughts and her actions.
"What I shared with people was really sincere and what I noticed at that time was like 'Oh, I'm freaking people out."
That experience made Fama realize just how much we normally hide from the world - and from ourselves.

Her 'What Is Love' project was a way to help people get past their own filters and to honestly consider what love has meant to them.

The whole experience came at a hefty cost. Fama lost her life-savings, her home and her partner. What she gained was a deeper understanding of life and love.
"I did come out with some pretty amazing realizations I think, and one of the biggest is that there is no answer. It's always changing."

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Photographer asks 300 people: what is your definition of love?

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In 2015, Angela Fama converted her '77 RV into a roving photo studio and travelled across North America. As she took people's photos, Fama asked them to share their definition of love. What started as a simple art concept ended up as a life-changing experience for her.

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How does the meaning of love differ from person to person?

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How does the meaning of love differ from person to person?

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Stats and Science about Love