Hygge & How I Replace It

So there's this concept called "Hygge", which is a Danish cultural term. I don't want to spend a ton of time going over the definition, so feel free to look it up. But basically it's being cozy and includes things like warm clothes, warm food, warm lighting - warm everything. One can see why Danes might be fond of it since they live in a cold climate. Here's what one guy said about it:

"For me it's a lot about family. Being together. Candles. It's never about being posh, about cakes from the 'right' place. It's cake you baked yourself. It's a feeling. It's something that has meaning in itself, it's not a means to becoming a better person, like doing exercise. I associate it with being a child, the smell of my mother cooking onions in the next room. The smell of the Christmas tree."

So that's all fine and dandy. I like the thing about cake - for me that really sums it up. And apparently this hygge concept has been all the rage in 2016, and therefore it's fairly mainstream to even discuss it. But what I'm talking about here is my own issue with it. I have no problem with it in theory. It all seems really nice. But someone with a personality like mine would not necessarily benefit from striving for hygge in one's life. For me it would just make me lazier than I already am and would provide me with yet another excuse to relax and take it easy (also on the list is the attempt to flee from being materialistic, the idea of 'self-care', the idolization of comfort, etc.). I have never personally struggled to find a reason to take time off from life. I do it on the daily to an unhealthy degree.

So that's why I'm so hesitant to embrace hygge. It's not something designed around people as un-self-disciplined as I am. But in thinking about it, both as an aesthetic trend and as a state of mind, I wondered what my own would be.

For aesthetic, I might use the word 'ethereality' to summarize what I strive for as an individual. I'm neither into modern decor nor classic, but something even slightly otherworldly is what makes me get all excited. And at this point, I'm just speaking idealistically.

For mindset, I choose the word 'elegance' for myself. I want to be hardworking and ladylike and classy and poised and effective, and elegance seems to aid those ideas. It dispels images of eating until I feel sick to my stomach and going days without showering just out of laziness and choosing to not clean my room because I'll do it later. These things are traits of my current life, and I'd like to change them. So in light of anyone in the world who is currently seeking out hygge for whatever reason, I've decided I'm going to seek out elegance in my own life. I will sit with good posture. I will cease wearing t-shirts. I will eat slowly and gracefully. I will get things done in a timely manner. I will be a formidable woman. And living elegantly might get me there.

Hygge is not for me, but its existence as a cultural phenomenon has inspired me to pursue my own ideal for my life, and for that I am grateful to it.