Daring to Dream for a Better America Inspired by The Nordic Theory of Everything

The other day my friends and I made plans to meet on a Friday night to enjoy a couple of bottles of wine I had brought from a trip to Shenandoah. I had been anticipating that gathering with my friends for a while.

The Monday following my trip, I sent a voice message to a friend, mentioning that a 3-day break was just what I needed to manage work until the holidays. Predictably, once I arrived at work and clocked in, I checked my email and saw the tasks awaiting me. A sense of dread washed over me.

I sat at my desk, gazing at the screen, and began counting the hours remaining until my shift ended.

I recently switched jobs because I had been commuting 1-hr+ each way to work for five years. I was tired, and the actual work was very stressful. I found something closer to home and decided to take this job, when in reality, what I actually needed was to take a step back and rest for a little bit.

So once Friday came around and I sat down with my friends, we discussed our dreadful weeks and started dreaming about other kinds of work we could do instead of the soul-sucking desk jobs.

That's when I mentioned I had finished reading The Nordic Theory of Everything, and needless to say, I loved it. It is THE best book I've read this year.

However, it also made me angry.

Angry about the lost social safety net potential and benefits we could have in America but don't.

Angry that leaving a job means losing your "affordable" health insurance. And although some politicians occasionally bring it up, no one seems to care. No one is angry enough about the current state of affairs.

What stayed with me

The idea of freedom and the importance of individual autonomy.

I think in America we have it backwards. We think that self-reliance and pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps show how strong individuals we can be. When in reality, this is a fantasy concocted by neoliberal ideals which seek to weaken our social safety nets because "big government" is bad. In America, we see those safety nets as handouts rather than our rights as citizens.

This quote from the author deeply resonated with me "After comparing my experiences with doctors in Finland and America, I came to this conclusion: In some ways I got more care in the United States than in Finland. My American insurance typically covered an annual physical exam and all manner of routine tests that had never been performed on me in Finland, since no doctor there had ever considered them necessary. At the same time, having to arrange so many aspects of health care myself, while also having to navigate the everchanging maze of employers, plans, prices, and the scarcity of openings with good doctors, I was thrown into a state of constant stress- and I wasn't even sick or injured yet. I longed for a different kind of freedom- the freedom of knowing that the Finnish health-care system was always there for me regardless of my employment status. I wanted the freedom of knowing that all the doctors were good and that their goal was whatever was in my best interests, rather than generating profits. I wanted to know that the system would automatically take me in and give me excellent care without having to exhaust myself with self-advocacy in my moment of weakness and need. That was real freedom. So was the freedom of knowing that none of it would bankrupt me."

Public healthcare is a right—not something that has to be at the mercy of an employer. That's the kind of freedom I want. I want us to be able to really choose what we want to do with our time rather than spend countless hours doing something that does not fulfill us while staring at a clock every now and then thinking, "3 more hours 'til the end of my shift," just for some benefits.

I know the government is crazy and disappointing right now, but we need to rethink our role of trust in public institutions and demand from our leaders that we want better. The US government already spends a lot of money on the kinds of services that help our society; we're just not as efficient. "A better way of comparing efficiency is looking at how much each country spends on a specific, comparable basket of services, regardless of who pays for it. The OECD has done exactly this, and found that when it comes to a specific array of social services, including items such as health care, pensions, unemployment benefits, child care, or credits for families with children, the United States ends up spending almost exactly as much as Sweden does in relation to GDP. Not only that, but Finland, Denmark, and Norway all spent less than the United States in relation to GDP for the same basket of services."

The aftertaste

After a few days of thinking it over, the ideas of flexible work and parental leave, a good educational and healthcare system, and how social benefits contribute to personal freedom left me a bit numb. But it also gave me a good piece of reflection to think that our shortcomings are not because of us as individuals but rather systemic failures. And maybe that is a good starting point that people in America should start from. To acknowledge that the system has failed us and society as a whole can't "personal finance" our way up, but rather we should strive to make these policy changes our priorities and have our voices heard.

On a personal level, my job still feels pointless, but I'm still exploring other outlets to find some kind of purpose and understand myself better as a person. Who knows, if I keep looking, maybe the right opportunity might present itself.