Lagom: the Swedish word for ‘just right’

The Swedish word ‘lagom’ says concisely what, in English, is quite a mouthful: not too much, not too little, but just right. Journalist Annemiek Leclaire looks at what we can learn from this Swedish sentiment.

Because Scandinavian countries always score so high in the world’s happiness ranking, people the world over—from South Korea to Brazil—are interested in what’s making the Northern Europeans’ lives so good. Following the popularity of the Danish concept of hygge (loosely translated as ‘coziness’), it’s now the turn of the quintessentially Swedish lagom. In her book, The Lagom Life: A Swedish Way of Living, UK-based Swedish author Elisabeth Carlsson defines the lagom lifestyle as never depriving ourselves but not overindulging, and avoiding waste.