Christina Swan

Norway's on a list. My country tops the list of the UN's list of the best countries in the world to live in. The average Norwegian is easily proud and doesn't want to share this title or the greedy secret behind it, to anybody. We do live in the world's "best country to live in". Yet I've never met people who are more bored with life and searching so much for meaning than the people I meet in Norway. We can afford to buy anything, but it doesn't guarantee satisfaction or even meaning with life. If you take Norway's oil fund (the one for future generations, to use when the oil runs out), it equals an equivalent of 300 000 kroner (approx. 30 000 pounds) per person. 300 000 kroner! That's in addition to the wages and bonuses we currently receive when we work, the holiday money and tax money that goes to pay welfare services. And what do we do with our spare time? We spend the money that we earned working... and when that's used up, or when "time's up", we go back to earning and spend the money on ourselves. Great.

Beyond Norway's millions of minutes of fame as the best country in the world to live in, when you live in Norway you realise there are other lists in function. Like: how many billions of kroner are we going to spend on Christmas presents this year (I don't even want to put the statistic up here). Who are Norway's richest and most powerful people. Who won the Top model contest. If they made a list of the happiest inhabitants in the world, how low would Norway score I wonder?

Wouldn't it be great if the lists that currently exist could be altered so that Norway topped the list over giving to countries in need. So that the amount of kroner we spend on Christmas presents still could be the same, billions of kroner, but be channeled into other Christmas presents, like mosquito nets for those who live in malarial areas. Clean water where there is none. Compensation for the environment that Norway has helped to destroy through over-using electricity and polluting the climate, leadidng to some people's experience of severe drought and the consequence: having to flee their homes in a quest to survive until the next day.

20% of the worlds' population use up 80% of the world's resources. That leaves 80% of the world's population using 20% of the world's resources. The "poorest people in the world". And the funny thing is, they are probably happier and have much more integrity than the rest of us. I reckon they deserve this integrity too.

Kirkens Nødhjelp (Norwegian Church Aid) has a campaign this Christmas: give a goat or some chickens, a vegetable garden, sports equipment, a water pump or a sewing machine as a Christmas present this year. The person in Norway you give the present to gets a postcard with a picture of a goat/a sewing machine/chickens etc (whatever you decide to give) and the money you send to Kirkens Nødhjelp goes to buying a family in the South a goat, a sewing machine, clean water, etc. What a great gift idea to those of us who have everything (which includes most of the people in the Western world, to be honest.) Gifts that change the world. See http://www.gaversomforandrerverden.no/home/default.aspx 

Have a blessed advent!

Christina

I have discovered the secret to serenity amidst the stresses of daily life... to treat oneself once in a while. ("Once in a while" being everyday since I discovered television and the importance of WATER...) After about five years of being deprived of television, I have reverted back to having a favourite program that I like to watch - Beverly Hills 90210, on TV3 between 4 and 5 pm. Incidentally, I usually have that time off work and studies too. Nice :-) Instead of thinking that I am wasting time by watching TV, I now see TV as a way to relax and completely unwind. I never knew TV could be so useful! (I also make a few more imaginary friends this way, friends whom I know all about but who know nothing about me - Kelly, Brandon, Matt, Donna, Gina, Dylan, etc etc etc... yo hoo!)

As for water, I discovered a few days ago how to use a proper bathtub... I haven't had a bath for years BUT I decided to have one a few days ago. I now know which way round to sit (it dawned on me as I saw the "handles" of the bath the "wrong" way round), and with the help of some radox (some kind of purple bubble bath with relaxation liquid in), I fell asleep as soon as I lay down on my pillow - which doesn't happen often.

To make matters better, I decided to take a trip to the swimming pool today, and start exercising... exercise releases endorphins which is the "happy" hormone of the body, and I remember I always used to feel SO good after every exercise session before. After many months in a tropical climate in Santa Cruz, where the sun and humidity made it too stifling to exercise, and months in La Paz where the altitude makes your head spin even just by walking, and the whooping cough I contracted while in Bolivia, my exercise habit has been gathering dust on a big shelf marked "the past". But now, with a little help from Special K - which does a four week "beat the bad habits" program - I decided to take up the battle against my laziness, and complement my TV watching with some swimming back and forth. After 40 lengths and a visit to the sauna, I felt GOOD. I brought three members of my family to swim too, which enabled me to kill two birds in one stone and combine some "family time" with "spare time".

In conclusion I ask myself: is life a) what you make of it, or b) what happens to you while you wait..? I would go for "a" and point to the classic latin word "carpe diem". Seize the day! :-)

(I also worked out this blog can show pictures! Wow!)

Christina