These unlikely sources had a blueprint for me — I’ll never be this good — the feeling stayed with me for weeks. Back in 2015, I decided to turn my passion for photography into a profession. I didn’t lack ambition and enthusiasm, but looking at Instagram profiles of photographers all over Sweden made me realize I lacked everything else. …

And how to avoid becoming one. — “This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.” — Nietzsche A few years ago, someone I loved began to show behavior that I wouldn’t accept in anyone else. They were things no partner should be complacent about. …

And why practical love is a whole lot richer — My first breakup was my worst. I thought my life was over. I was a teenager. I used to think love was all about constant infatuation and a happily ever after. By then, my idea of love came from books, films, and TV shows. From Backstreet Boys and Westlife. They…

How these 7 ‘departments’ are controlled will reveal the answer — Controlled, dominated, manipulated, neglected — these are not feelings we expect to come across when we decide to share our lives with someone. Yet, too many of us have untold stories of being emotionally suffocated by someone we consider our closest. From experience and observation, I know how easy it…

But the solutions are easy to adopt. — We keep telling ourselves that we are maturing with age, that we are learning to do better as we read advice pieces and go through life. …

You can only avoid them if you see them coming — One of our soul’s most profound desires is to find a stranger to one day call our closest, and keep them for life. Yet, tentacles of toxicity creep into our most prized connections, leveraging our feeble grasp on emotions, our oversight, and myopia, to cause us incalculable harm. Whatever our…

Sometimes you say it best when you say nothing at all — Communication is key. It isn’t all words, though. A lot of times we can communicate more, and better, without using words at all. Words, more often than we think, can hinder rather than help a thought from getting across. I am not taking a radical route like Depeche Mode who…

Turn the lockdown into a rekindling opportunity. — When life feels stagnant, fresh can easily turn stale. Bound within the same four walls, robbed of the familiar indoor-outdoor balance, lines blurred between work and leisure, keeping our lives interesting has become increasingly difficult. The same is true for romance. Even couples who never experienced a heightened interest in…

Thank you, Corporate Sweden. — First, let’s get the “huh?” out of the way. Recently, my favorite Swedish coffeehouse chain announced an offer. For a 149 SEK/month subscription, you can have any amount of coffee or tea you can practically drink at any of their 400+ locations all over Sweden. …