SLOVENIA'S 5 CORE VALUES

None of them were very good at breathe.

An old wooden bridge stands at the edge of the valley. It is said that the bridge not only crosses the river, but also metaphorically represents the dividing line between excess and balance. But like all other good old legends, people have almost forgotten about it over the years.

One afternoon, Marta Jelenko and Tatjana Sodin Trunkl met on this bridge. Marta was carrying a basket of herbal teas, Tatjana a notebook half full of ideas and half full of worries. Both were getting a little tired of always having to be some of these things: efficient, optimistic, focused, inspiring... All the things that society expects of us.

As has happened many times, they stopped in the middle of the bridge. Marta was the first to speak: »Sometimes I feel like I'm trying too hard and that's why nothing flows,« she said, leaning against the old railing.

Tatiana nodded. She erased a thought from her notebook, which she realised she had written just so she could say she had created something.

»Maybe we drink too much from a glass of duty and not enough from a glass of pure curiosity,« she smiled.

The bridge under their feet creaked slightly, as if waking up.

»You know,« Martha continued, »I read yesterday that even too much of the beautiful can grow into something that starts to suffocate us. Even if it's a good thought, good food, or a good calendar that you fill too full of obligations.«

Tatiana slowly closed her notebook, which was already a mini-revolution for her.

»What if we do something today that we don't usually do?«

»And what would that be?«

»Nothing. Exactly. Nothing. We'll sit down and have tea. We'll let the world take care of itself for a while.«

And that's what they did. Marta took two cups from the basket and a homemade mixture of lemon balm, mint and wild apple blossom. On a bench at the end of the bridge, they listened, perhaps for the first time in a long time, to what was going on outside their heads: a river that was not rushing; a wind that was not setting deadlines; and leaves that had no purpose other than to rustle slightly.

And it was there that Tatjana said quietly, »I think we have found our moderation. It's not in the rules, it's not in the schedules... It's in allowing yourself to be human.«  

Martha raised her cup, »Drink to this. And that sometimes it's good to let something go, so that something else can come out of its own accord instead.«

And that bridge, which carried so many old stories, was then given a new one: the story of two women who realised that life is not a marathon, but more like a slow walk, and it is quite enough to walk, observe, breathe and stay calm., when you're too tempted.

Justina Strašek, 17. 11. 2025