Like sunshine reflected on snow, the purpose of this small book of wisdom is an invitation to optimism, to self-confidence. “More men are good due to habits than due to nature,” says the Greek philosopher Critias. This book came to me from Denmark as an embryo of an idea that can be counted among didactic literature and self-help. Its voice is conciliatory, sincere, generous, and effective, with a camaraderie that the author uses to encourage young adults, for whom this book is intended, to trust in their abilities, to become a Kierkegaard or a Bjork, according to each one’s desire to choose the direction they want their lives to take. The Viking Code is more than a simple title. It is fitting because once the reader begins the journey through its pages, they find what Spanish writer Vicente Cuenca, who now lives in a Norse country, has found. He is “lucky to live in a Viking nation, in a culture that is based on work, honesty, integrity, and respect.” Vicente Cuenca’s cultural, literary, human, social, and spiritual trajectory has been full of movement, changes, and constant, positive evolution. Vicente Cuenca has the advantage of experience and wisdom of vocational paternity, brought together with the daily practice of love and responsibility – love and discipline, in that order, as a moral educational norm. Thinking about the man and the writer, those who know him can’t help but to recall the Greek axiom “the person who reflects on themselves thinks upon what has brought them to be.” Vicente Cuenca knows how to take us (especially teenagers and young adults) to the central thought that will eventually bring us to success, even though many of our first attempts may leave us waiting, wanting, or even frustrated and disillusioned. The Viking Code is a book about “inner success” intended for a young audience that is forging its way in life, a life that is freely decided. All our lives, young and not so young, belong to us by the right
