þetta reddast (pronounced thet-ta red-ust)
"If Iceland were to have a national slogan, it would be ‘þetta reddast’, which roughly translates to the idea that everything will work out all right in the end.
With generations of hardships such as formidable weather, poverty and volcanic eruptions, Icelanders have learned to adopt the resilient Icelandic outlook of "þetta reddast", which shows that sometimes, it’s better to let go and look positively towards the future.
The phrase near-perfectly sums up the way Icelanders seem to approach life: with a laid-back, easy-going attitude and a great sense of humour.
From here.
Further, it says:
In her book, The Little Book of the Icelanders in the Old Days, Sigmundsdóttir recounts some of these hardships: the long winters; extreme poverty; indentured servitude. There were volcanic eruptions, like the 1783 Laki eruption that killed 20% of the 50,000-strong population, as well as 80% of its sheep, which were a vital food source in a country with little agriculture. There were storms that swept in and sank the open rowboats used for fishing, wiping out much of the male populations of entire towns. Things were so bad that even up through the 18th Century, according to Sigmundsdóttir, 30% of babies died before they turned one.
While Iceland today is an ultra-modern place where wi-fi is abundant, credit cards are accepted everywhere, and the majority of the country is powered by geothermal energy, it was only about 90 years ago that 50% of the population lived in turf houses (traditional homes with walls and roofs made of earth and grass) – so these hardships aren’t such a distant memory. Just 45 years ago, the Eldfell volcano exploded on the small island of Heimaey, spewing millions of tons of ash, engulfing 400 buildings and forcing the evacuation of all 5,000 people who lived there. And just 23 years ago, a massive avalanche decimated the town of Flateyri in the Westfjords, burying more than a dozen homes and killing 20 of the town’s 300 residents.
Even on a day without disasters, Iceland is beholden to the forces of nature. The island moves and breathes in a way few others do; fumaroles exhale steam; hot springs gurgle; geysers belch and bubble; waterfalls thunder. The country sits on the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, and those plates are slowly moving apart, widening Iceland by about 3cm per year and causing an average of 500 small earthquakes every week.
The country’s weather is just as volatile and formidable. Windstorms can reach hurricane force, strong storms can sweep in even in summer, and, on the darkest winter days, the sun shines for just four hours.
Maybe it makes sense, then, that in a place where people were – and still are – so often at the mercy of the weather, the land and the island’s unique geological forces, they’ve learned to give up control, leave things to fate and hope for the best. For these stoic and even-tempered Icelanders, þetta reddast is less a starry-eyed refusal to deal with problems and more an admission that sometimes you must make the best of the hand you’ve been dealt.
“We couldn’t live in this environment without a certain level of conviction that things will work out somehow, hard as they seem in the moment,” Ösp said. “Þedda redast represents a certain optimism that Icelanders have and this carefree attitude that borders on recklessness. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t, but we don’t let that stop us from trying.”
“It’s not that we’re impulsive or stupid,” Ösp continued. “We just believe in our abilities to fix things. With the conditions we live under, we’re often forced to make the impossible possible.”
I kept hearing this phrase come up, Þetta Reddast* which loosely translates to, “It will all work out okay.”
Well, let’s consider for a moment that Icelanders have had to learn how to thrive as an isolated, small country in the middle of the North Atlantic and remain hopeful while in the throes of seemingly never-ending dark winters and incredibly unpredictable weather.
It’s only natural, then, that these conditions would lend themselves to creating an irrefutable indomitable spirit that can be felt throughout the country.
