Why I Moved to Finland

I had a good life in England. I need to say that upfront because people always assume something must have gone wrong. That I was running from something. A bad breakup, a dead-end job, some dramatic falling out with the in-laws.

None of that. I had a decent flat in Manchester, a solid job in IT project management, friends I’d known since university, and a local pub that poured a proper pint. Life was fine. That was sort of the problem.

The Comfortable Rut

There’s a specific kind of dissatisfaction that comes from having nothing to complain about. You wake up, commute, work, commute back, eat something from Tesco, watch something on Netflix, go to bed. Repeat. The weekends blur together. You’re not unhappy, but you’re not really anything. You’re just… existing.

I’d been doing this for about eight years after uni. Same company, two promotions, a corner of the open-plan office that I’d gradually made my own with a sad little succulent and a mug that said “Keep Calm and Manage Projects.” That mug should have been my wake-up call, honestly.

The Finland thing started as a joke. My mate Dave sent me a job listing for a project manager at a tech company in Helsinki. “Mate, they’d love you over there,” he said. “You’re already practically Finnish. You hate small talk and you drink too much coffee.” I laughed and forgot about it.

Then I didn’t forget about it. I kept thinking about Helsinki. I’d pull it up on Google Maps at my desk and just… look at it. This place I knew almost nothing about, other than saunas and Nokia and that it was apparently the happiest country in the world. I started reading about it late at night when I should have been sleeping.

The Application I Didn’t Expect to Send

Two weeks later, after three beers on a Friday night, I applied for the job. It was one of those things you do knowing nothing will come of it. Like buying a lottery ticket. You don’t actually expect to win.

They emailed me back on Monday.

The interview process took about a month. Two video calls, a technical assessment, and a final interview with the Helsinki team. Everyone was friendly in that calm, measured way I’d later learn is just how Finns communicate. No one was trying too hard. No one was performing enthusiasm. They asked good questions and actually listened to the answers.

They offered me the position on a Thursday afternoon. I remember sitting at my desk in Manchester, staring at the email, my heart doing something it hadn’t done in years. I was terrified. I was also more excited than I’d been since I was a kid on Christmas morning.

Telling People

Telling my parents was harder than I expected. Mum went quiet, which is never a good sign with my mum. Dad asked practical questions: What about your pension? What about the NHS? Have you looked at the tax situation? (I had not looked at the tax situation.)

My friends were split. Half of them thought it was brilliant and kept saying things like “good for you, mate” while looking slightly envious. The other half thought I’d lost the plot. “Finland? In winter? Are you mental?”

My sister just said, “About time,” which I think was the most honest reaction of all.

The thing nobody tells you about making a big life decision is that the hardest part isn’t the decision itself. It’s the gap between deciding and doing. I had three months before my start date, and every single day my brain alternated between “this is the best thing you’ve ever done” and “you absolute idiot, what have you done.”

Packing Up a Life

Selling my flat was straightforward. Selling or giving away most of my possessions was surprisingly liberating. I stood in my half-empty living room surrounded by bags for the charity shop and felt lighter than I had in years. How much of our stuff is just… stuff? Anchors we don’t need?

I kept the things that mattered. Photos, a few books, my grandad’s watch. Everything else went. My entire life fit into two suitcases and a carry-on. That felt right somehow.

The Ferry to a New Life

I could have flown, but I deliberately chose to take the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki. I wanted to feel the distance. I wanted the crossing to mean something.

Standing on the deck of that Viking Line ferry as Helsinki came into view, I had this moment of absolute clarity. I didn’t know if this would work. I didn’t know if I’d last six months or six years. I didn’t speak the language, I barely understood the culture, and my entire social network was 1,500 miles behind me.

But I was awake. For the first time in years, I was properly, fully awake.

Three Years Later

I’m writing this from my flat in Helsinki. It’s December, and the sun set at half three this afternoon. I’ve just come back from a run along the waterfront. My Finnish is still terrible, but I can order coffee and apologise in three different ways, which apparently covers about 80% of Finnish social interaction.

Was it the right decision? I can only tell you this: I don’t have that mug anymore. I don’t need it. I wake up most mornings genuinely curious about what the day will bring, and if that’s not the whole point of being alive, I don’t know what is.

Finland didn’t fix me. I wasn’t broken. But it shook me loose from a life I was sleepwalking through, and for that, I’ll always be grateful to Dave and his stupid job listing.

If you’re sitting somewhere right now, reading this, with that familiar itch that something needs to change but you can’t quite name it — I’m not going to tell you to move to Finland. That’s your call. But I will tell you this: the fear doesn’t go away. You just learn to walk forward with it.

And sometimes, the fear turns out to be excitement wearing a disguise.