It's not bad

That's the usual answer when I ask a foreigner if they like to live in Sweden. I heard this answer thousands of times. The last one was this morning when I was talking to the lady that works cleaning the building where I live. I can say that in more than 10 years here, I never heard an effusive yes as an answer. And that includes conversations with refugees that came here in order to stay alive.

To make it clear, I don't consider the answers of people living the honeymoon phase or students. The honeymooners don't fully understand how things work yet, and the students pay no taxes, don't face the job market, don't have money to invest and don't raise kids. Things that would force you to face the reality and deal with the state.

After I hear the "not so bad", my reply is always: why? And that's when it becomes interesting. Most people can't explain why it is not good, they just feel like it is not good.

Being pragmatic, thinks look good here: you get access to schools, healthcare, decent salaries, parental leave, sick leave, clean air, clean cities, polite people, safety… All these things are good, everyone agrees. The problem is, nothing feels great. Everything is OK. Everything is lagom.

Lagom is one of this words that became famous abroad and are used by coaches and in titles of low quality books about different cultures. In short, lagom means just the right amount, not too much, not too little.

So, if it's the right amount, not too much, not too little, what is the problem? The problem is that everything is bland, nothing is great. You will feel satisfied but never amazed.

What I call bland can be also understood as stable. No ups and downs, just a plateau. A life where you're not depressive, but not extremely happy. No big problems in life, no big wins. It's like the tax system here: it makes hard for you to make a lot of money (high taxes, up to 52%), and also make sure you will never be homeless (welfare state). 

The problem is, if you're moving only sideways, no ups and downs, how do you measure your situation? How do you know where do you stand?

To evaluate how you feel, you need to compare to past experiences: times where you felt happy, times where you felt sad, that period where you reached the bottom and the most glorious days. If you go for too long being stable, these times fade in your memory and you have nothing to compare. You can only compare bland to bland and extract no result from that.

I believe this is one of the reasons why many Swedes travel frequently to "chaotic destinations". By chaotic destination I mean places where you will see graffiti on the walls, trash on the streets, people getting angry at each other, cars parked where it is not allowed. Places like Portugal, Spain, Thailand, Greece (the good weather is another reason).

I do believe this is a search for chaos, a search for the ups and downs in life but in a safe way. It's like a safari, you can go there and experience the chaos but you can leave at any moment. These trips are a chance to create milestones in life, moments you can look back and try to compare where you are to where you have been.

If you're born and raised into stablandness (stability + blandness) you can get used to it and it is not a big problem. But foreigners will always have some milestones to compare, a life before Sweden. The result of this comparison is what leads to it's not bad.

I have no conclusion here and I'm not passing any judgement. I know many people love a stable environment and the feeling of safety that it brings. That's not me. I believe that assuming the future is stable is dangerous, it makes you unprepared for unexpected events. The ups and downs are what make life interesting. It's how you measure yourself and understand what you are capable of.

Enjoy life,
Leonardo Ribeiro Oliveira

Photo I took today in Stockholm. Raining and 3C outside while I have a coffee and a croissant in a nice coffee shop.