Beyond Hygge
Everyone seems to be looking for happiness these days.
The internet is full of it.
Happiness.
Success.
Transformation.
A better version of yourself.
A better house.
A better body.
A better life.
As if happiness were waiting just around the next corner.
One more achievement away.
One more purchase.
One more destination.
One more version of ourselves.
Sometimes I wonder if we have become so busy chasing happiness that we no longer stop to ask what it actually is.
Or whether it is even the thing we are looking for.
Over the years, another word has become impossible to ignore.
Hygge.
Books have been written about it.
Magazines have tried to explain it.
Entire industries have grown around the idea.
Candles.
Ceramics.
Beautiful lamps.
Carefully designed interiors.
The promise that a better life can somehow be arranged.
For years, we were building our own version of hygge.
Not for social media.
Not because it was fashionable.
It simply felt right.
Books.
Music.
Good coffee.
Long conversations.
Beautiful light.
A sense of calm.
We created it within our own four walls.
Inside a small world that belonged only to us.
A place where the noise of the outside world could not easily enter.
Looking back, I think our version of hygge was never really about candles or beautiful lamps.
It was about creating a small refuge.
A place that reminded us who we were.
And it worked.
It was real.
It gave us comfort.
It gave us a place to return to.
But there was always a catch.
The moment we stepped outside, the spell was often broken.
Traffic.
Deadlines.
Emails.
Meetings.
Crowded shops.
The feeling that everyone was rushing somewhere.
Chasing something.
Although nobody seemed entirely sure what it was.
Sometimes I wondered whether this was really what life was supposed to feel like.
At this point, it would be tempting to say that moving to Lanzarote changed everything.
But that wouldn't be true.
Because peace is not something you automatically find at the end of a flight.
You can move to Lanzarote and remain exactly the same person.
Just as you can stay in Glasgow, Copenhagen or Warsaw and still find it.
The island is not the answer.
The question travels with you.
What changed was not the island.
What changed was our ability to recognise certain things.
To appreciate them.
To pay attention.
To notice forms of peace that had probably been there all along.
For years, hygge was something we created.
Inside our own four walls.
Slowly, it became something we started recognising elsewhere.
In the north of Lanzarote.
In villages like Guatiza.
In conversations that had nowhere to go.
In neighbours sharing what they had.
In people greeting each other on the street.
In simple acts of kindness that were never meant to impress anyone.
Perhaps nothing had changed.
Perhaps we had.
These days, I find myself thinking less and less about happiness.
And more and more about peace.
The peace of a slow morning.
The peace of having nowhere particular to be.
A conversation that takes its time.
A neighbour stopping for a chat.
The trust in a dog's eyes.
A cat sleeping nearby without a care in the world.
Small things.
Ordinary things.
Things that rarely appear in magazines, advertisements or social media.
And yet, they often feel closer to what we were looking for all along.
For years, we thought hygge lived inside our home.
We were wrong.
