I'm also fascinated by the concept of lagom. I can see where you and I, raised in North America, might have a hard time wrapping our mind around it--as you say, it's very different from the ideals of abundance we're used to. I wonder if it's also related to class? A friend and I were recently talking about the idea of optimizing and how central it is to the way that the US middle and especially upper middle classes see themselves--how we pride ourselves on learning about a variety of options or resources and making the very best possible choice among them--and how often in practice that choice turns out to hinge on a difference without a real distinction, except the fact that we made it, dammit! :) M.

(Sorry, editing for subject verb agreement. *sigh*)