Markus Anecdotes - A Year Measured in Small Annoyances

Written by Markus

Source picture: https://www.reddit.com/r/nederlands/

Nothing truly bad ever happens in the Netherlands. That is perhaps the most disorienting thing about living here, especially at the beginning, when your instincts are still calibrated for urgency. There are no dramatic collapses, no sudden emotional emergencies imposed by daily life, no moments when everything goes wrong at once and demands immediate reaction. The country does not ambush you. It does not raise its voice. It does not hurry you. Instead, it inconveniences you—politely, methodically, and in very small, carefully rationed doses.

The inconvenience is never enough to justify anger. That is the clever part. It never grants you the release of outrage, never allows you the luxury of feeling wronged. It merely nudges you, again and again, toward patience. If I were to measure my year here, it would not be marked by milestones or achievements or disasters worth retelling. It would be measured by minor annoyances. By moments so small they barely qualify as events, yet frequent enough to shape your temperament over time. Each one harmless. Together, quietly instructional.

The Netherlands has perfected the art of systems that function beautifully while remaining emotionally indifferent. You are not ignored. You are not mistreated. You are simply processed. Correctly. Efficiently. Calmly. Without any unnecessary acknowledgement of how you feel about it. Everything works, just not in a way that reassures you while it does.

It often begins with letters.

Letters from the tax office, mostly confirming what was already confirmed

Letters arrive precisely when they are no longer useful. Not incorrect letters. Not confusing ones. Just letters that confirm something you already know, regarding a situation you resolved weeks earlier. You read them carefully anyway, because ignoring official correspondence feels vaguely dangerous, even when logic suggests it is harmless. You nod, fold the paper neatly, and place it on a growing stack of documents that represent the administrative echo of your life—papers that once mattered and now linger out of habit rather than necessity.

Somewhere in a system, a box was ticked. Somewhere else, another box was ticked slightly later. No one did anything wrong. No one failed at their job. The timing is simply Dutch.

Online portals follow the same philosophy. They function. They load. They guide you step by step through a process that asks for information the system already possesses. You provide it without resistance, because resistance would be inefficient, and inefficiency is the only real offence here. You are not there to be understood. You are there to complete a transaction.

Source: https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/carriere/ambtenaar-kan-straffeloos-te-weinig-doen (a civil servant can do little work without consequences)

Occasionally, the system requires human contact. You call. The person who answers is polite, competent, calm, and impossible to rush. You receive an explanation that is accurate, thorough, and emotionally neutral. It does not shorten the timeline. It does not express concern for your inconvenience. When the call ends, nothing feels worse—but nothing feels better either. The problem has simply been returned to the queue, where it will mature at its own pace.

Waiting becomes a recurring theme. Not dramatic waiting. Not suspenseful waiting. Just administrative waiting. Waiting that is transparent and therefore oddly difficult to argue with. You are told exactly how long it will take, and the estimate is usually correct. The accuracy removes your leverage. You cannot complain when the system does precisely what it promised, even if what it promised was slowness.

Infrastructure operates according to the same logic. Roads are maintained. Trains move. Delays are announced clearly, with reasons attached and expectations set. Apologies are factual rather than emotional. You are informed, not comforted. Understanding is assumed rather than requested. At first, this can be irritating. You want more urgency, more reassurance, more acknowledgement that your time matters. Then it becomes background noise. Eventually, it becomes strangely reassuring. There is comfort in knowing the system will not panic, even when you do.

Social interactions mirror this rhythm. People are direct, but not cruel. Polite, but not effusive. Friendly, but not intrusive. Conversations do not wander unless there is a reason for them to do so. Nobody wastes your time. Nobody performs enthusiasm. Nobody asks questions they do not need the answers to.

Coming from a culture where efficiency often arrives wrapped in warmth, speed, and emotional attentiveness, this can initially feel like absence. Elsewhere, service smiles more, reassures more, reacts faster. Here, it simply functions. There is no script designed to make you feel special. There is no attempt to disguise neutrality as charm.

At first, you misinterpret this. You assume coldness where there is simply restraint. You search for hidden meanings that do not exist. Over time, you learn that absence of emotional performance is not absence of respect. It is simply a refusal to waste energy. You begin to appreciate the honesty of it. You are allowed to exist without being managed emotionally.

Even small talk is economical. It exists only when it serves a purpose. Silence is not awkward. It is neutral. You do not have to fill it. You are not required to explain yourself, justify your mood, or perform sociability on demand. This is unsettling at first. Then it becomes liberating.

The weather participates enthusiastically in this national commitment to mild inconvenience. Rain does not arrive dramatically. It drifts in lightly, persistently, just enough to interfere with your appearance but not enough to justify cancelling plans. Wind appears frequently, without apology. Cold settles gradually, never spectacular, never extreme—just present enough to require adjustment. Heat, when it comes, feels tentative, as though unsure whether it is welcome.

Source: nd.nl

You do not fight the weather. You dress around it. You adapt. You carry layers. You learn that discomfort does not require emotional escalation. You stop expecting comfort to be provided externally and start managing it internally.

This pattern repeats itself daily: not frustration, but friction. Not chaos, but controlled inconvenience. Nothing dramatic enough to provoke anger. Just enough to require patience. And patience, practiced daily, quietly changes you.

Over time, the accumulation becomes noticeable—not because life gets worse, but because your reactions change. You stop expecting systems to care about you personally, and because of that, you stop feeling disappointed when they don’t. You build buffers into your plans. You pre-accept delays. You learn to arrive emotionally early rather than physically late.

You lower expectations—not out of pessimism, but out of accuracy.

This does not make life smaller. It makes it lighter.

You stop narrating inconvenience as injustice. You stop interpreting waiting as failure. You stop assuming urgency is a virtue. You begin to notice how much emotional energy was once spent reacting to things that never truly mattered.

Time itself feels different here. Not faster. Not slower. Just less dramatic. Days do not spike. Weeks do not lurch. Life moves forward at a pace that is neither rushed nor indulgent. There is a steady rhythm to things, a sense that tomorrow will resemble today closely enough to be predictable, but not so closely as to be stagnant.

Work follows the same principle. Processes exist. Rules are followed. Expectations are clear. Efficiency is valued, but not at the expense of order. You are trusted to do your job, and once you do, you are largely left alone. There is little appetite for theatrics. Problems are addressed, not dramatized. Meetings end when their purpose is fulfilled. Decisions are made, documented, and executed without ceremony.

Source: nos.nl

Even conflict is contained. Disagreements are expressed plainly, without excess emotion. Feedback is direct. You may not like what you hear, but you are rarely confused about what is being said. Clarity replaces reassurance. Precision replaces comfort. Over time, you realize this is not cruelty. It is efficiency applied to communication.

At first, you miss intensity. You miss urgency. You miss the feeling that everything matters all the time. But intensity is exhausting, and urgency is addictive. Slowly, without realizing it, your nervous system recalibrates.

You stop scanning for threats that never arrive. You stop preparing for emergencies that do not materialize. You start trusting that most things will resolve themselves, if not immediately, then eventually. You stop rehearsing responses in advance. You stop bracing.

The year passes quietly. No peaks. No valleys. Just a steady accumulation of ordinary days, punctuated by mild irritation and reliable resolution. And then one day, you notice something peculiar.

Nothing bad happened.

Yet something changed.

Your tolerance expanded. Your reactivity softened. You learned that life does not need to be dramatic to be meaningful, nor emotionally expressive to be humane. You learned that predictability, when it is fair, can be a form of kindness.

You did not become less ambitious. You became less frantic. You did not lower your standards. You adjusted your expectations. You learned that not everything requires a response, and not every inconvenience deserves your energy.

In a country where nothing truly terrible ever happens, you acquired the rare ability to remain unbothered by things that do not matter.

And quietly, almost without noticing, that became the most lasting transformation of all.