The Silence of The Swedes

I had heard of this unspoken custom before moving to Sweden a couple years ago. This untranslatable ethos is called lagom (pronounced: law-gum) and it permeates all facets of the Swedish psyche. Often misconstrued as indifference, or the stereotypical Scandinavian “coldness,” lagom is loosely translated from Swedish as “just the right amount,” “in moderation,” “appropriate,” and other such synonyms.