A retiree in Chiang Mai called out my whole 'work from anywhere' plan

I was at a coworking spot near Nimman last month, grinding through client calls, and this older guy, probably 70, sits down next to me with a tiny notebook. He watches me for maybe 20 minutes, then just says, 'You're moving fast, but where are you actually going?' I laughed it off, but he kept poking: asked me how many countries I'd been to that year, and how many I really saw. I said 11, then I had to admit I mostly saw airport lounges and Airbnb Wi-Fi. He told me he'd spent 30 years as a shipping clerk, saved up, and now he takes one bus trip a year, stays a month, learns one dish to cook. Honestly, it hit me harder than any productivity course I've paid for. Has anyone else had a random stranger totally dismantle their digital nomad setup in one conversation?

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claire44321d ago

My friend Jake went through something similar in Lisbon. He was bragging about his 40 hour work week from a hostel rooftop, and this old Portuguese lady watering her plants next door just laughed at him. She asked if he knew the name of the tree he was sitting under, and he didn't. Then she told him about how she'd worked in the same bakery for 45 years, and her one big trip was to see her sister in Brazil. He said it was the first time he realized he couldn't remember a single meal he'd eaten in the last month, but she could describe her grandmother's bread recipe in perfect detail. He still does the digital nomad thing, but now he takes one day a week to actually explore wherever he is. That conversation messed with him way more than any YouTube productivity guru ever did.