Nordic society is about opportunity and freedom.

Because we have a functioning childcare system, women are free to pursue their careers instead of being forced to stay at home.

Because we have comprehensive healthcare, no one has to fear that an illness will destroy their financial future. We are free from that fear.

Because education is free, everyone has the opportunity to study as far as their abilities and determination can take them.

Because we believe that everyone deserves a home, people do not have to live in constant fear of homelessness.

Because we receive a good education and learn foreign languages, we are free to seek our happiness anywhere in the world.

And because Finland will still be there when we wish to return, we are free to come home and raise our families.

Because we have social security, education, healthcare and housing, we are free to choose whether we want to work for someone else or build a business of our own. Taking risks is easier when failure does not mean ruin.

Finally, because good education has made many of us atheists—or at least skeptics—we do not have to fear death or hell. Freedom from superstition is freedom too.

That is what the Nordic model ultimately provides: not equality of outcome, but equality of opportunity. It gives people the freedom to choose their own lives instead of having them dictated by poverty, ignorance, fear, illness, or dogma. And that freedom creates happier people.