Norway was lucky to be a very developed society before oil was discovered. In most countries oil is a curse
In a lot of places people will immediately get suspicious if you say you're setting up a government fund to hold everyone's money. For the benefit of society, of course.
Thats a virtuous loop. You institutions work because you trust that strangers trust your institutions.
And well north of the city/further from the sea you can feel proper winter better, sure. Even so close as Lillestrøm it's crisper. But again, nothing unusual by North/central European standards.
Norwegian climate is not so harsh that it makes life an perpetual fight for survival. But it's nasty enough to slap one's lazy nose every once in a while.
Norway has its natural limitations though which made for a tougher life. Like insufficient options for agriculture, one thing that made feudal system here impossible and diets fairly lean.
We look down on many countries, like the US, because they tend to overwork and prioritize work over life.
Our success, like the oil fund and high ratings, has much more to do with a series of smart efforts on building a mutually beneficial society where people trust each other, the media, businesses, the police, the government etc than just hard work. Many people from all around the work hard, but just hard work doesn't lead to good societies. In fact the mantra of "hard work" often leads to the opposite - survival of the fittest to the detriment of others.
(I wouldn't be sure Norway could do this today either).
Developed countries are not immune to this. For example, in late 1990s and early 2000 US budget deficits were falling, then budget went into growing surpluses. But those surpluses were quickly spent on tax breaks and war on terror and US went back into large deficits. Politics :(
Being from the Netherlands, which has/had large gas fields, it makes me jealous our government didn’t have a similar foresight.
Australia is the largest exporter of LNG and gets about 3% of the Royalties that Qatar earns. it is simply incompetence and corruption.
So that does go with what you said (I don't know their oil history, but I assume they build a society that was culturally western European before they discovered and started extracting oil resources).