Multiple-choice reading

When my company announced that we could work from anywhere for three months, my colleagues reacted as if they’d been offered free flights to the moon. Some immediately pictured laptops beside swimming pools. Others worried, more quietly, about whether they could stay focused without the familiar rhythm of commuting and office chatter. I was somewhere in the middle. I’ve always liked travelling, but I also know that changing your location doesn’t automatically change your habits. Still, I booked a room in a small coastal town that I’d visited once as a student and remembered as calm, walkable and slightly out of step with modern life.

The first surprise was how quickly the town tried to welcome me. The owner of my rented room insisted on carrying my bag upstairs, even though I could see he was older than my father. A neighbour offered me a jar of homemade jam “so you don’t live on supermarket food”. It was kind, but it also came with a message: in a small place, people notice you, and your choices become part of the local story. In the city, I can disappear into a crowd. Here, if I buy the same sandwich twice, someone will ask if I don’t like cooking.

My working day settled into a new routine. I woke early because the light arrived without asking permission, and because the seagulls held loud meetings outside my window. I worked from a tiny desk facing the sea. On video calls, my team joked about my “luxury office”, but the truth was less glamorous. The internet connection was unpredictable, and on windy days the microphone picked up so much noise that I sounded like I was speaking from inside a washing machine. I learned to download documents in advance and to keep a notebook beside me, just in case. It was a reminder that technology makes remote work possible, but it doesn’t make it simple.

What did change, though, was my relationship with time. In the city, I often ate lunch at my desk, telling myself I was being efficient. In the town, lunch was something you did away from your screen. The café near the harbour closed at three, not because the owner had poor business skills, but because he had decided his afternoon was worth protecting. At first, I found this irritating. Then I realised that my irritation came from a belief I rarely questioned: that being available all the time is a sign of professionalism. Watching people here choose a slower pace didn’t make me less ambitious; it made me wonder why ambition had to look so exhausted.

Of course, the town wasn’t a postcard version of peace. Tourism had brought money, but it had also raised rents, and several locals told me their children had moved away because they couldn’t afford to live where they grew up. One evening, I sat on a bench with a fisherman who complained about plastic in the water. He didn’t speak like an environmental campaigner. He spoke like someone whose job depended on the sea staying healthy. “People think the ocean is endless,” he said, “so they treat it like a bin.” The next morning, I noticed the bins on the beach were overflowing, even though it was only May. That detail stayed with me, because it showed how quickly “small” problems become normal if nobody takes responsibility.

I also noticed my own behaviour changing in ways I hadn’t expected. I walked more, partly because everything was close, and partly because walking felt like the right speed for the place. I bought less, because there were fewer shops, and because online shopping suddenly seemed less urgent when the delivery van only came twice a week. It wasn’t a dramatic transformation, but it made me question how many of my habits were truly preferences and how many were simply the result of convenience. In the city, buying a new phone charger is a two-minute task. Here, it required planning, or borrowing one, or accepting that you could manage without.

The biggest lesson arrived in my final week. A storm knocked out the power for an afternoon, and with it my carefully organised schedule. I couldn’t email, couldn’t join meetings, couldn’t even make coffee. I expected to feel anxious, but instead I felt oddly relieved, as if someone had finally given me permission to stop. I went outside and watched the waves hit the wall near the harbour. A few locals stood there too, not taking photos, just looking. It struck me that they weren’t “escaping” life; this was their life, with its difficulties and its beauty, and they were paying attention to it.

When I returned to the city, my colleagues asked if I’d recommend working remotely by the sea. I said yes, but not for the reasons they expected. The view is nice, and the fresh air helps, but that isn’t the point. The point is that a different place can show you the shape of your days more clearly. It can reveal which parts are necessary and which parts you keep out of habit, fear, or the desire to appear busy. I didn’t come back with a perfect new routine, but I did come back with a useful question: if my work can travel with me, why can’t my attention?