The Hyggelig Journey

We are living through something never before seen. A collective grief. A strange and quiet mourning, unfolding in layers. We do not grieve for a single thing, but for many. For the world that was, for the ordinary days that once seemed unremarkable. For the rhythm we had without knowing it was a rhythm. Something has shifted, and we feel it in the body. The loss of normality. The fear of what will become of us. The vanishing thread of social connection. It presses against us, all at once, an invisible weight. And there is a grief that is not yet grief, but already lingers in the air. Anticipatory grief. That sensation of standing at the edge of something vast and uncertain, trying to see what lies ahead, but only meeting fog. It is the grief of what might be, the whisper of a loss that has not yet happened but is already mourned. Usually, it is tied to death. A doctor utters an unspeakable diagnosis, and time fractures. Or, on a quiet afternoon, an ordinary thought slips in: one day, ...

Positive thinking begins in an ordinary way: an internal conversation. Something simple. Almost a murmur in your head, blending into the noise of buses, bills, the day's endless demands. And this stream — relentless, unforgiving — shapes the way you see life. If the thoughts that visit you are mostly negative, your view of the world tilts towards grey. Suddenly, everything is a bigger problem than it should be. You focus on what went wrong and dismiss what went right. The blame, of course, is always yours. You start anticipating the worst because a minor inconvenience in the morning surely means disaster for the rest of the day. And so, the day drags on, heavy — because, without realising it, you decided it would. On the other hand, there are those who think positively. Not because they ignore problems, but because they have trained themselves to see other possibilities. This shift is possible, but it requires recognising where pessimism has settled — in work? In routine? In relati...

To say that we only see what we want to see is not a mistake, but a human condition. We walk through the world not as impartial observers, but as sculptors of reality, carving existence with the chisel of our own beliefs. It is not a whim or a factory defect, but an intrinsic bias: we seek that which confirms what we already believe and avoid what challenges our convictions. It is a form of mental economy, a shortcut of thought. Accepting the familiar and the coherent demands little from us. But facing the contradictory—ah, that is exhausting, it requires energy, it forces us to confront the possibility that we might be wrong. Between what has just happened around you and what you remember happening, there is more space for everything that disturbed you than for reality itself. Such bias, however, need not be a cage. If we see it not as a wall but as a starting point, we can use it to grow. It is like the stabilisers on a child’s bicycle: they provide security in the learning process, ...

The difference between today and tomorrow is not as grand as you’d like to believe. Today, you wrestle with obstacles; tomorrow, you expand horizons. But expansion is not a miracle, nor an act of willpower alone. It is an arrangement of details, of decisions, of knowing what to leave behind and what to hold tight. Dreaming is fine, even necessary. But without priorities, dreams dissolve like mist in the morning. Everything is about focus. And focus, they say, makes all the difference. So you insist, persevere, draw up plans, measure steps with precision. That’s good. But remember to be kind to yourself, because life is not a task list. Make space for silence, for a pet stretching lazily in the sun, for a friend’s unexpected message, for family stories that go nowhere but are still worth listening to. Take care of your garden — even if it’s just a stubborn little snake plant in a chipped pot. Of course, indulgence will tempt you. It always does. The weary self whispers: You deserve this...

( Image by  Dimitris Vetsikas  from  Pixabay ) I have recently moved my blog to a new domain. I realised I should move it to a proper .page, something not so strange anyway considering I always wanted to create “en.hyggelig.page”, which is roughly translated from Danish as "a pleasant page".  Hyggelig means a lot more than just pleasant, though. It is expressed to share a feeling of security, comfort, and familiarity. It is also an expression of appreciation for anything that brings people closer, gathered in a familiar environment, where intimacy is an embraced key value. If you can imagine yourself feeling cosy, alongside familiar people in a comfortable room, then you are close to grasp the concept. There is also a deep sense, an almost impossible truth to pass unnoticed, a sense of gratitude and grace towards enjoying life's little pleasures, with kindness and simplicity.  Which brings me back to this small “en hyggelig page”, a plac...

Not so long ago, a close mate of mine, Kasper Nymand , started his career with enthusiasm and carism. Knowing him since forever, I was at the same time happy for his focus onto a brilliant start and worried for noticing he was distancing himself from everyone. It's emblematic when you see yourself in others, especially when you too have struggled to find an equilibrium between work and family. So there was I, following his start and wondering to myself, should I warn him on measuring his enthusiasm? Is that even something someone wants to hear? Should I let him learn his compass alone? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong about enjoying your work and feeling pushed towards doing a good job. My concern was, essentially, on the wide range of intensity I was noticing. He was all in, although everything seemed perfect. I waited for a chance to approach him, without questioning too directly his otherwise unbreakable determination. Few months later, on his 20th birth...

I've attempted to discover a quick way to deal with confrontational scenarios by interpolating empathy with courteous demeanour. While it didn’t interrupt confrontations, nor made them avoidable, it seems that begging to disagree can work, so long as you’ve have first learnt to mirror what is being talked in a different point of view. I like to call those exercises tools for mutual understanding. It took me a while to understand that it is natural for some people to showcase colourful disagreement only to capture a topic by exhaustion. Funnily enough, no words can interpret with precision what a subject matter can bring to a vulnerable person. I say vulnerable not to explicate people who eventually become vulnerable, oh no. We are all vulnerable to small stressors, too many of them, too many times. Triggers, say, of how much sentiment you will drill in a matter of seconds. More than that, it is a delusion to ignore them. That’s righteous okay, I need to add. Subjectivity is always ...