We wouldn't ignore tennis tips from Serena Williams, or culinary advice from Nigella Lawson, so when one of the happiest countries in the world lets slip a life strategy, we should probably pay attention. Even if it does, at first, sound a little simplistic and perhaps provoke an eye roll.
Obligatory mention of hygge now dealt with, get ready to embrace “pytâ€. Not to be confused with the 1983 Michael Jackson single, this Danish concept means accepting when a situation is out of our control. Then, even though we may be so angry and exasperated that we are in danger of spontaneous combustion, we don't waste energy thinking any more about it and instead move on.
I might also decide to be taller, while I'm at it. Fluent in Japanese. The major shareholder in Amazon. My point is that while this is a theoretically sound idea, I'm not sure it works in practice. Simply making the choice to get over something and – ta-da! – it magically happens?
In pyt's defence, it does at least sound like the noise you would make when letting something go, a version of pffft. “Pyt is usually expressed as an interjection in reaction to a daily hassle, frustration or mistake,†says Marie Helweg-Larsen, a Danish professor of psychology. “It doesn't have an exact English translation. It's more a cultural concept about cultivating healthy thoughts to deal with stress. It most closely translates to the English sayings, ‘Don't worry about it,' ‘Stuff happens' or ‘Oh, well.'â€
The approach works so well for the Danes that you can buy a pyt button to press when times become testing, and yet I remain sceptical. It feels as if we are veering dangerously towards toxic positivity territory.
Maybe the sticking point is that nine and three-quarter times out of 10, when we find ourselves experiencing a “daily hassle, frustration or mistake†it's because we're at the mercy of somebody else. Mind you, that means pyt could also be seen as forgiveness and awareness.
The author David Foster Wallace made a speech, later published as This Is Water, which I always remember slightly too late when infuriated behind the wheel. He talked about “the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existenceâ€. He went on to encourage us to think differently about other people, even those who drive like complete idiots.
“The Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in his way.â€
I often wish I'd recalled that gem a few seconds earlier, but never more so than when I gesticulated extremely sarcastically and extravagantly at a driver who I then realised was my friend's husband. (Our eyes locked in horror, and ever since we have pretended it never happened, AKA we are both British.)
I find it easier to get on board with pyt if, rather than a denial of reality or creepy mind control, it's an acceptance of fellow human beings and an acknowledgment that I'm undoubtedly just as annoying as they are, and not doing it on purpose either. As evidenced by the hypocrisy of seeing every person in the same train carriage as me hypnotised by their phone, and feeling appalled, while enjoying the certainty that it's different for me because what I'm doing on the phone, as I briefly glance up to notice them, is essential.
Maybe what pft is really about is compassion. For ourselves as much as other people, for the mistakes we all make. Each one of us is the main character in the most significant storyline in the world, rushing around, getting in the way, and being thoughtless and irritating without meaning to or realising. One person's pyt is another's live and let live. Pyt-ayto, pyt-ahto.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
