You don't have to succeed – Finding peace in a slow life.

Hello everyone! Winter came so fast this year. Only two weeks ago I sat in front of my camera complaining to you about how plain our winters get here, with little snow and not much beauty. And overnight the world around me decided to completely change into a winter wonderland of frosty pine trees under a blanket of beautiful fluffy snow. Growing up closer to the city than to I never liked winter, but these moments have made me fall in love just a little bit. Unfortunately I physically cannot handle the cold very well and I struggle with numbness in my feet and hands whenever the temperatures drop too low, no matter how weather appropriately I dress. But this walk in my neighboring forest was very much worth the cold toes. I have enjoyed every minute. Wildlife is so quiet right now and the woods are nearly silent this time of year, but sometimes the snow makes it possible to find traces, even hoofs or paws of different animals. January is a strange time of year I think. We celebrate a new year and have all these desires for rebirth and growth and a fresh start, when in reality January is a time of deep rest. It becomes so obvious to me when walking around these woods. Nature knows that we shouldn't bother with goals and resolutions just yet. There will be time for all of that in spring, so I try to take this time slower than my mind wants to. I give myself permission to sleep more and longer, letting the hours of light and dark guide my rhythm a bit more, as much as possible of course. Sadly, our societies and work schedules don't follow these natural cycles at all and many of us are still forced to get out of bed hours before the sun rises. Still, I try to focus on peace and gentleness this time of year, spending more time on the sofa, reading more, working more on creative projects and reminding myself that the true time for rebirth is in a few months. Most of all, I try to reassure myself that I don't need to be bursting with energy and motivation to achieve 100 goals right now in this very first week of January. I have time, a whole entire year to achieve everything I hope for, or nothing at all. I think we are often taught to believe that we are these endless projects to optimize and improve. I choose to see myself not as a self-help productivity project anymore, but simply a human being. If I stay at this point in my life forever, I want to feel at peace with who I am, how I spent my time and how I love the people and the earth around me today, not in five years or after retirement. I used to believe in racing through life to get to some kind of imagined finish line that would mean I succeeded. I was someone. I did something extraordinary. I achieved everything. I don't think that way anymore. Maybe today can be successful enough. Maybe there's no race at all and all that truly matters is our time well spent. Whatever that means. For me it means being in nature, being creative and enjoying good food and company, safety, peace and health. I wonder what it means to you. One new year's ritual that I do love to follow though is my yearly letter to myself. Each year in January I read and write a letter to myself. Sometimes looking back on a long year it can feel as though nothing has changed. These letters always surprise me with how far from the truth that feeling is. Twelve months can turn me into a completely different person and I've really grown to love this ritual over the last seven years of doing it. I encourage you to join me this year in writing your letter to your 2027 self. It's always so exciting and I now do it together with my boyfriend who enjoys it just as much as me. We usually take a long nature walk on January 1st and read our letters by the water. Walking home we can never stop laughing at our old selves who tried to plan everything so intensely and seeing now how different life just seems to play out every year. One year ago we had big career ambitions in the city and were under a lot of financial stress and now we are less than three months away from moving overseas to the Irish countryside, changing both of our career paths entirely. I find so much humor and beauty in this. Another thing I did in the last week was baking a lot of sourdough bread. I'm finally home from my mother's place where I spent the holidays and was able to bring my sourdough starter back to life. Lately I've loved adding spices like caraway or a tablespoon of honey. I'm no pro at sourdough by any means but after two years I still enjoy the process of making bread and baking it early in the mornings in a still dark kitchen. I personally think that bread and butter is the most perfect combination and one of my favorite things to eat probably forever. I also had a friend visiting me for my birthday which was so sweet and wonderful and we had a little goodbye breakfast together and I did a lot of work on some paintings which I will share with you when they are ready to be seen. I hope that that is sooner rather than later but I have a lot to learn. I wish you the most beautiful new year and I am so happy to talk to you today. We just went for the most incredibly beautiful winter walk through the forest along the water and at night the temperatures were at like minus 12 degrees celsius and the lake is almost completely frozen over at least as far as I could see and it was so beautiful. We walked over the water, it was so gorgeous. It made me so happy because I'm a sun person and I miss the sun when I don't get to see it for a couple days so it was so good for me to leave the house today because I turned a little bit into an animal in hibernation in the winter time so leaving the house going on this walk was incredible. Sadly I didn't bring the camera so I have the ambition to go out really early tomorrow morning to catch kind of the first light and hopefully you get to see that in next week's video because one of my 2026 goals is to upload a video every week, every Sunday. I don't know if I will be able to actually do it but I will try my best because I gifted myself this camera and the promise I made when I bought it was that I would commit to this passion of video making as much as I can to kind of earn it in a January is a very spiritually important time for me because it feels very new not just because of the new year as it does for all of us but because my birthday is on the 9th of January so today is my second day of my 25th year of life and I feel so good about it. I used to always struggle with the idea of getting older and I think that was because of my job and kind of the pressure I put on myself to reach certain things and I don't know what clicked but in the last couple months I just decided that I don't care anymore. 25 is young enough to start whatever I want to start, 30 is young enough, 40 is young enough to start whatever project we want to start so I'm very excited to start this year with such a new feeling in my soul and joy for being alive so that feels incredible because it used to not feel like that and I remember last year my birthday felt quite sad and I think I felt quite depressed about turning 24 which sounds ridiculous but I think a couple can relate to this pressure society puts on us to achieve certain things by a certain age and yeah so I'm very happy I'm moving out of this mindset. So yesterday was a special birthday for me because I got to spend it here at home with my boy. Usually I spend it with my mom because my mom and I share a birthday so the 9th is always our celebration but because I spent nearly the entire December at my mom's place to look after the new kitten I decided to stay here this year and it was such a good decision because we had extreme weather warnings and it was so nice not to travel and be at home. Well I did leave the house, we went to the art store and we got some coffee and breakfast in town which made me so happy because that was the gift I chose from my boyfriend because all I desired this year was to go to the art store and get all the craft materials and paints and everything I have been dreaming to get and I think I'll show you next week's video because I got a beautiful easel from my mom and so many new cool painting supplies. Another huge goal of mine for this year is to finally finally commit to my art. I have been just roaming around this life trying to find out what to do with it for a long time and sometimes going against my intuition and I think you know I think I know I want to be an artist and I think that's my ambition in life to be an artist and committed to art and I have always loved painting so much that I never spent much time actually investing in the skill of painting and the understanding of painting and good materials and really time on a daily basis so that's my biggest goal for 2026 the year I pursue art to one day hopefully be a full-time artist and I have no idea if it's but I think it is because I really wanted to and I am so excited to paint every day at the moment but before I keep talking too long I want to wish you all the most beautiful start into your new year and a gorgeous day wherever you are and whatever time zone I am so grateful that you're watching this video and I hope that this season and these first weeks of the new year can be restful until next week I hope I will try my best and thanks so much for being here I'm sending you all my love see you soon