I am absolutely thrilled and delighted to report that I have rediscovered my long lost love. Well this love never ever went away… to be quite honest, it was I that got tired of it and was dismissive of it. Thought there were better things to do than read, since after all, since 2009 tons of reading was mandatory and no longer for pleasure.

Basically reading became associated to work, and not pleasure in my mind. Thus without realising it, I lost one of the greatest loves of my life. I would always feel guilty reading something for enjoyment knowing there were other things on my to-do list to read. Until now…

I don’t know how it happened – I suspect it has to do with this period of rather deep introspection I’ve been navigating. Asking myself, what it is that I’m consciously and subconsciously doing, and what it is that I really and truly want. So like I still don’t have final answers, but I do know what I definitely do not want, one being to continue the completely unbalanced approach to life that I’ve maintained in recent years. There was a time and purpose but no longer. You know that “Go Great or Go Home” mantra that I’ve preached for so long, That has got to Go.

There’s a new concept, funny enough the Swedes are the masters of it, called Lagom – or moderation. I am tired of not training at all for two to three weeks then deciding to run a half marathon. Or working quadruple time to meet some crazy deadline, because I scared to disappoint someone including myself. Or just darting around like a headless chicken or stretching myself to keep up with my own unrealistic, sometimes even crazy goals. Look, I won’t deny that I am really happy, even rather proud of many unbelievable things I managed to pull off but that seriously needs to become the exception, not the norm. True story. I have nothing left to prove to anyone.

My introspective quiet time forced my to face and not resist my fears, all of them. Some of this was very painful, but worthwhile. Lagom. See, one can only do that much thinking, and since I don’t enjoy watching TV, I picked up a book and compelled myself not to feel guilty about it. And I enjoyed it, so I read another, and another and another for pure enjoyment, on topics completely unrelated to work. I’m still on not reading any fiction titles…maybe I will eventually or maybe I won’t. I’ve started running only 5km only two or three times a week. Stopped drinking so much red wine. I sleep more and I put my work away after hours, sometimes… OK more than before (big smile – old habits die hard). Lagom.