I lived in Sweden for a few years. People ask about the design, the meatballs, the darkness. What struck me most was something invisible — the calm.

As an empath, I absorb the energy of my environment. In most cities, the background hum of stress is constant. People running on fumes, performing productivity, one bad month away from crisis. Your nervous system never fully tunes it out.

In Sweden, the baseline was higher. Virtually everyone was middle class. I didn’t see homeless people on my daily commute. People worked, went home, and actually lived. Nobody seemed to be drowning.

The Swedes have a word for this: lagom. It roughly translates to “just the right amount.” Not too much, not too little. It’s not minimalism as an aesthetic — it’s a cultural instinct that says enough is enough, and enough is good.

What makes lagom powerful isn’t personal restraint — it’s a social immune system. An anti-greed inoculation. In a lagom culture, the person hoarding more than their share isn’t seen as ambitious. They’re seen as breaking the social contract. That quiet disapproval regulates greed more effectively than any policy ever could.

Were there fewer ultra-wealthy people? Sure. But in return: a society where strangers trusted each other, where the collective stress level was low enough that kindness wasn’t an effort — it was a default.

We talk about inequality in terms of economics — income gaps, wealth distribution, tax policy. But there’s an emotional dimension we ignore. Living in a society where people around you are desperate changes you. It hardens you. It makes empathy expensive. You start rationing compassion because the need is everywhere.

Lagom removes that tax. When the floor is high enough, empathy stops being a sacrifice and starts being natural. You have the bandwidth to care because you’re not spending it all on survival.

The smartest thing a culture can do isn’t chase more. It’s agree on enough.