Struggles, Stereotypes, and Courage

It is through our greatest struggles that we learn our greatest truths. I’m not talking about the day to day trials such as our TV is broken, our public buses are too dirty, or that we simply had a bad day. The struggles I’m referring to are the real hard-core life challenges. Sickness. Losing your home. Losing a child. War. Dealing with floods and property damage. These are issues where the only person who will save you is yourself. Hardships can break you, if you let them, or raise you up like a phoenix from the ashes.

Last week, I came upon an article in Nordstjernan entitled, Are Swedes Too Safe?. The article was a feature on David Eberhard’s book, I Trygghetsnarkomanernas Land (In the Land of Safety Addicts), and his upcoming lecture in San Francisco on April 19th, 2013. The idea that perhaps we are attempting to make ourselves too safe has been a conversation point for me for some time now, and Nordstjernan’s article caused a good deal of further reflection for me. While I certainly believe that everyone on the planet should experience feelings of well being and safety, I have to ask, when does it become counter productive?

Updating and redesigning

Greetings All,

2013 is the year! Please bare with me as I update and redesign this blog starting today. So, if you happen upon this site and see some things amiss, keep in mind that I’ll be working day and night for the next 5-7 days making this site bigger and better. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve recently made the move to Sweden where I now reside. It’s been a journey and a half!  This blog will  reflect all that I see, photograph, learn, and write about as I reflect on a new life and the transitions that got me here. Not everyone gets the chance to redesign their life from scratch and yet every life is a path … we just need to be brave enough to take the first step.

Gävlebocken

I had spent several hours in front of my computer watching the cursor flash against the empty Word document. I finally reach out to my beau in desperation, “I’m freaking out. I seem to have lost the ability to form even the smallest creative thought,” I said to him.

“Hmmm… you have a block,” he says. “Let’s see if we can figure something out to help you.”

“Ok, but at this point, I’m not even sure I can spell.”

“You just want too much. You need to think more simple,” he says. “Why don’t you write about the Gävle goat? Every year they try to burn that Christmas goat down.”

“Which goat?” I ask with eyebrows raised.

My beau lives in Göteborg, so here it is . . . a simple Christmas tale direct from the land of Sweden.