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.

As people the world over are

sheltering in place, many are looking
to find comfort and contentment amid
a very difficult situation. To help
people cope, BBC Travel is updating
some of our most popular stories on
uplifting cultural practices around the
globe that offer inspiring ways to find
hope when times are tough.

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.

We were somewhere in the remote

Westfjords, a large peninsula in
Iceland’s north-west corner, when our
 campervan first stalled. It was late
September, the end of the tourist
season in a part of Iceland that sees
about 6% the country’s annual tourist
numbers, and the roads were all but
empty.

The van stalled twice more as my

husband and I made the roughly
200km drive from Látrabjarg, a
windswept bird cliff perched on the far
western edge of Iceland, back to our
base in Ísafjörður, the Westfjords’
largest town (pop: 2,600). Once we
finally got back to our apartment, we
called the campervan rental company
and told them the issue. Unfortunately,
the town’s mechanic wouldn’t be
available before we were due to make
the drive back to Reykjavik.
A quick Google search informed me that þetta reddast (pronounced thet-ta
red-ust) doesn’t mean ‘sorry, I’m not paid enough to care about your
troubles’, or ‘try not to get stranded in the middle of nowhere’. It means ‘it’ll
all work out in the end’ – and if Iceland had an official slogan, this would be
it. 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.