Sometimes the Best Days Start Before Everyone Else

Today I tarted with a long walk with my little dog friend “buddy”… there is something about beginning the day outside that seems to put everything else into perspective. -The air, the movement, the quiet before the day properly begins. Truly!
Afterwards, I headed towards Oslo earlier than normal and once again, almost no traffic.

Driving towards Oslo with the sun shining over the Oslofjord was one of those simple moments that could so easily have passed without me really noticing it. But perhaps.. -because I have been thinking so much lately about time, presence and how quickly our days disappear, I noticed it today.

The light on the water. The calm road. The feeling of being ahead of the day instead of chasing it.

There was something incredibly good about starting early.
And then, of course, the day did what days seem to do lately.
It raced away.

Suddenly it was Friday and another week was almost behind us.

Living in the Curve

I have written about this before, and I am writing about it again because I really cannot say it enough.

We have to remember to live in the curve.

Living in the Curve has become my own way of describing something I increasingly believe is essential. Life is very rarely a perfectly straight road where everything happens according to plan. There are turns we did not expect, people who change our direction, difficult periods, wonderful surprises, uncertainty, responsibilities and moments when we have absolutely no idea what waits around the next corner.

And still, this is our life.
Not the imaginary life waiting for us once everything becomes easier.

Not the life we are going to start living when the calendar calms down, the children need us less, work becomes less demanding, the house is finished, the finances are perfect or all our worries have disappeared.

This one.
Right here.
In the curve.

I think we sometimes postpone living without even realising that we are doing it. We tell ourselves that we will relax later. Travel later. Call someone later. Sit in the sun later. Take better care of ourselves later. Spend more time with the people we love later.

But what if later keeps moving?

Perhaps living in the curve means accepting that life can be complicated and beautiful at exactly the same time. That we can carry worries and still laugh. That we can have unanswered questions and still enjoy dinner. That life does not need to be perfect before we are allowed to enjoy it.

That is something I want to become better at.

Not someday.

Now!

Fun Fact, since it`s Friday..

The Norwegian love affair with tacos really took hold during the 1990s and has since become so closely connected to Friday evenings that the words “taco Friday” need almost no explanation in Norway. It has become less about authentic Mexican cuisine and more about something very Norwegian: gathering around a table at the end of the week and starting the weekend together.

This weekend..

And for the weekend, I am hoping for sun, joyful hours and as little rushing as possible. Perhaps a long morning, somewhere comfortable to lie in the sun, good food and absolutely no guilt about doing very little.

What are you doing this weekend?

And maybe an even better question is this:

Are you actually going to be there while you are doing it?

A Week in a World That Never Seems to Slow Down

Because while our own lives continue with walks, traffic, dinner and weekend plans, the larger world has once again given us plenty of reasons to stop and think.

This week has carried some very different realities at the same time. Conflict involving Iran and uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz have continued to affect global energy markets, with Brent crude rising strongly during the week. At the same time, markets have remained surprisingly resilient, helped in part by softer inflation numbers from the United States.

Europe has also been confronted with another side of our changing world. Scientists reported this week that Western Europe experienced its warmest combined June and July on record, with heat and drought contributing to serious wildfires in several areas.

Further east, tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has condemned upcoming military exercises between South Korea and the United States and has promised to strengthen its nuclear deterrence, while missile activity has again added to concerns in the region.

It is a strange contrast.

This morning I was driving peacefully beside the Oslofjord with hardly another car on the road.
Somewhere else, families were waking up to a completely different reality.

I think it is healthy to remember that occasionally.
Not because we should feel guilty about having a good Friday.

Quite the opposite.

Perhaps we should appreciate it more.

Peace, safety, food on the table, a home, the ability to take a walk in the morning and plans for a quiet weekend are not small things simply because they are familiar to us.

Sometimes familiarity makes us forget how valuable they are.

What Is Happening to Welfare Norway?

That thought also makes me reflect on Norway and the welfare society we have built.

We are incredibly fortunate to live in a country where there is a safety net when life does not go according to plan. Illness, disability, unemployment, becoming a parent, growing old or suddenly needing help do not automatically mean that a person is left completely alone financially.

NAV itself administers schemes representing around one third of the Norwegian state budget. That alone tells us something about how central the welfare system is to the society we have created.

But being proud of the welfare state should not prevent us from asking difficult questions about how we preserve it.

The latest figures from Statistics Norway show 143,000 unemployed people in June, corresponding to 4.7 percent of the labour force. At the same time, Norwegian households are still feeling higher prices. Consumer prices in July were 3 percent higher than a year earlier.

Then there is sickness absence and disability.

The OECD recently pointed out that Norway has the most generous sickness and disability benefit system among OECD countries. Spending connected to sickness and disability amounts to more than 8 percent of mainland GDP and around 22 percent of public spending.

Those numbers should make us think!
Not because people who are genuinely ill should receive less compassion.
And not because welfare is something we should be ashamed of using when we need it.

A good welfare society exists precisely because human beings can become ill, lose their ability to work, experience crises or simply need support for a period of their lives.

But a strong safety net also depends on enough of us being able to contribute to it.

That is the balance Norway has to find.
How do we take better care of people who cannot work while helping more of those who can work, perhaps partly or differently, to remain connected to working life?

How do we talk about responsibility without losing compassion?
How do we talk about rights while also remembering that a society needs contribution?
And how do we make sure that people are seen as human beings rather than numbers in a system?

I do not believe these questions belong to only one political party or one side of a debate.
They belong to all of us.

Because welfare Norway is not some distant government construction.

It is us.

It is what we collectively choose to provide for one another.
And if we want future generations to inherit the same sense of security, we have to be willing to talk about how it can remain sustainable.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde

Perhaps We Already Have More Than We Notice

Maybe that is the thought I am taking into this weekend.

We talk so much about what is wrong.
What we need.
What we want to change.
What somebody else has.
What we have not achieved yet.

And sometimes we need those conversations.
But occasionally I think we should also look around and recognise what is already here.

This morning I had a long walk with my buddy.
I drove towards Oslo while the sun glittered across the Oslofjord.
There was no traffic.
I had a good day with my love
I`m looking forward to a weekend with my love and my children

And if the weather is kind to us, I hope there will be plenty of sun and some wonderfully lazy hours this weekend.
None of those things will become international headlines.

But they are life.

This is exactly what I mean when I keep returning to Living in the Curve.
Notice the view while you are driving through it.
Call the person you keep thinking you should call.
Spend time with the people you love.

And please stop waiting for the road to become perfectly straight before you, but allow yourself to enjoy the journey.
We simply do not know how many curves there will be.

Motto From Nordè

Do not wait for life to straighten itself out before you start living it. Find the sunlight in the curve, notice the people beside you, and remember that an ordinary Friday may one day be exactly the kind of day you wish you could have back.

Tonje