Lapland

This winter I spent a wonderful week skiing in Lapland. You're probably asking - "There are mountains in Finland?". Yes. Yes, there are. Very few, but a lot have been turned into mini getaway resorts with alpine and cross-country skiing, reindeer and husky parks and of course multiple opportunities to go for a sauna.

The first couple of days were spent alpine skiing which I hadn't done in quite a few years so it was so great to finally get a chance to (damn you Lithuania for being so flat...). As soon as I went up the hill I couldn't help but spend the next 10 minutes just looking around at the beauty of Lapland in winter. The sun was starting to set (as it does for most of the "day") and despite freezing my fingers off, I was able to take a few photos of the scenery.

It was interesting to witness arctic circle winter. The best way to sum it up is: 10am sunrise, dim light for a few hours and bam, sunset. It's dark by 3pm and feels like the day went by incredibly fast. Luckily the ski tracks were very well lit, so well in fact that it was practically brighter than in the day time. Houses are also very well lit indoors, all to help you survive the darkness which I'm sure can easily bring you down.

But hot cocoa can cheer you right up!

One mission we wanted to achieve was to witness the elusive Aurora borealis- the northern lights. This proved to be much more challenging than I had thought. On days it was strong, the sky was cloudy and on clear days the aurora was weak. This led us to believe that there could be a correlation there... Sneaky Aurora... On our last day, we finally had a chance. However, it wasn't too strong so even though we saw it, it didn't provide that Wow effect we were craving so much. Next time it is then.

We couldn't go to Lapland and not visit Santa. Conveniently, we needed to pick p a friend in Rovaniemi, where the Santa park is. We met Santa (two of them actually), walked around the village and got our fill of Christmas spirit. It was interesting to find out that they were heavily marketing themselves in Japan and so many Japanese people were coming to Lapland specifically for visiting this place. It was nice to see the park, but to be honest I felt like there was so much unused potential. The different pavilions weren't really working with each other, there were too many shops (the interior design shops were cool, but in Santa town, really?) and the service packs were set in stone so you often didn't have a chance to try out some services individually.

Smile! You're on Santa camera!

Santas ride then and now

The third day we gave cross-country a try, going around the hill we had spent the previous days going down. Finally, we finished our trip with a day of snowboarding. Since my brother had decided to switch out skis for a board from the first day, he was able to give us a few lessons on how to you know, not kill ourselves on the bunny slope. He proved to be a great teacher as by the end of the day we were able to all go down the red slope together (the beginner way, but still. Win :) ). 

And so the long way home began. We had driven up all the way from Vilnius and decided to go back without making any stops on our way back (that's a 20-hour ride for ya). This was because we were set on coming home in time for Christmas eve dinner. We made it back at 6am and after waking up and taking a few hours to prepare we were all ready to start the celebration :)

Thoughts: being too quick to lay all your cards on the table

I've been noticing more recently (in others and myself) this need in a conversation to bring up all the cool stuff about yourself in the least amount of time to quickly show people you've just met how interesting you are. It may be a consequence of travelling or being outgoing, basically being in situations where you're meeting a lot of new people, but don't have much time for long conversations and have to capture their attention fast. Like a tweet or Instagram hashtag, you sum up up a bit of info in the most "You" way you can. So you condense and share some of your intense life events or experiences to show people, a sort of trailer for your life and try to make a great first impression getting the person hooked on your story. Our society moves at super speed these days and interactions have followed suit.

However, sometimes when you condense a major event like it's no big deal trying to show that this kind of thing happens all the time to you, that's exactly what you turn the event into - something that is no big deal. You reduce its meaning to something superficial by not giving it the attention you could, and it becomes shallow. What may have been an intense and meaningful experience is stripped of its depth by the way you speak about it.  Instead of unavailing the passion you feel for it and inspiring the person you're talking with to share experiences that have awakened those feelings within them they might feel they have to 'up the ante' and search their experience bags for a memory that sounds as 'cool' as the one you shared, not necessarily of the same personal value. Conversely, it might be harder for the other person to share something because an event or experience will not resonate with them as a feeling might and they don't have that dimension to grasp on to when sharing their experience. What's more, you end up hiding the essence of the experience, the thing that gives it life and that can sometimes feel like you're untrue to yourself like you're giving something up while shielding away its light. This might happen when you are pressed for time and want to identify people with whom you would like to have a deeper conversation. However, by not attaching feelings to your stories you stop at merely telling each other how 'cool' you are, at best getting some external validation and not connecting on a personal level or forming a bond with whoever you are talking to.

Using this method you can meet and get noticed by interesting people, but you won't necessarily form a connection with them. And it's the understanding and connection that we crave. What's the point of having a thousand friends on Facebook, but not feeling like you can write to most of them as time goes on.

Another thing that can sometimes come to mind as the cause of this sort of empty sharing parade is that you are trying to prove to the person you're talking to that you are 'worth' their time. If you feel like you need to do that, then you've put this person on a pedestal and have created a morphed power dynamic in your mind where you're on the lower end. This isn't great as it doesn't benefit anyone. The best conversations and interactions come when both people respect each other, give each other space to share and are confident in themselves enough not to be bothered about what the other person will think of them in the end as long as what they think of themselves at the end of the conversation is good. You most likely don't ever need to talk to those people after this interaction ever again, but you're stuck with you, honey. If you need to jump through hoops to get noticed, that interaction is just going to leave you drained and if so, why do it?

There is nothing wrong with sharing your stories with others, but it's important to make sure you are happy with the way it's going, and you're creating an experience in itself. What kind of experience would you like that to be?

Some might say that not laying all their cards on the table can make them feel untrue to themselves. Is it not more untrue to oneself to not give the space and proper amount of time to reveal them? When the time is right, it can be done in a way that is both organic and authentic.

Remember, the world isn't ending, you have time to share your experiences giving them the full amount of time they deserve. Also, isn't it great to uncover parts of people you didn't know existed until you've known them for a while? Peeling back those layers slowly and the suspense that comes with that can be incredibly exciting. If the person you are talking to enjoys your company, they will stick around for you to reveal more about yourself and your friendship will grow more organically than if you just push all you have on them at once and expect them not to be overwhelmed by it all. After all, you've had your whole life to do the things you've done, feel passionate about and experience them, people can't process that same amount of information in the few minutes you spend talking to them.