Illustration by Alex Chen
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It’s 6:40 a.m. on a Tuesday. The commuter train pulls out of the station, gliding into the pale light of dawn. The car is quiet. A young woman near the window is absorbed in her book. Across the aisle, someone has dozed off. I have my earbuds in, listening to the audiobook Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, letting the ideas prepare my brain for the day ahead. Outside, the city of Toronto is slowly waking up.
I’ve had jobs that kept me in the office late into the night. I’ve had seasons of remote work where time felt endless. I have driven long hours on highway 401, Spotify turned up loud, counting the kilometres from the west to the east side of the GTA.
And now, I ride the train through a city where the commute is sometimes hectic and sometimes peaceful, but always full of fellow travellers heading somewhere – toward work, toward school, toward whatever it is that gives them purpose. What ties all these experiences together is not the location but the constant negotiation with myself: how to belong, how to stay connected, how to keep my energy in the right place.
I think back to those drives on Highway 78 from Pennsylvania to New Jersey when I was working in the U.S. a couple of years ago. On good days, the road was open, the sun streaming across my dashboard, giving me an hour to think and breathe before stepping into a high-pressure day.
On bad days, traffic slowed to a crawl, and I would arrive tense, shoulders tight, already behind before the first meeting began. Once, I parked my car on the shoulder of a highway, sending out an all-employee e-mail that was urgent. Those commutes taught me that the journey can either drain or prepare you, and that transition time matters. Movement itself can become part of the work day, a fast-moving corridor where your mind catches up with your calendar.
I learned something different in Lyon, France, when I was living there from 2020 to 2022. The city was beautiful, the food unforgettable, the wine world-class – but none of it mattered during those long months of quarantine, when I felt so far from everyone I loved. Work was all screens and no human contact, and the isolation was sharp. What I longed for most was not a croissant or a glass of Côte du Rhône, but a chance to sit with my French colleagues, to stumble through ABCs in their language, to share a cup of espresso or a glass of rosé face to face. When I was finally able to go back into the office – masks on, taking the subway – I felt joy. I was in heaven.
And in my earliest working days in China, fresh out of university, I learned how far I could stretch and how fast I could run. The “9-9-6” rhythm (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week) taught me ambition and resilience, but it also taught me that weekends could be too short to recover.
And now, in Canada, I am learning balance – still imperfect but closer to the rhythm that lets me do my work without losing myself in it.
That’s why I don’t see “return to office” as a policy or a mandate. It’s a different way of showing up for work. And whether we are single, raising young children, supporting aging parents or juggling two jobs, we all have to find the pace that allows us to survive and thrive as we head back to the office.
Returning four or five days a week may sound intimidating, but it can also be an opportunity. An opportunity to make friends with colleagues, to share a laugh by the coffee machine, to solve problems together at a whiteboard. An opportunity to see people’s energy in real time – not just on a screen – and to be reminded that work is not a solitary pursuit but a shared effort.
One late afternoon recently, as I stepped off the train and walked to the parking lot to get my car, the fall wind swept over my face, carrying away the fatigue of the day. For a moment, I stood still and let the crowd move past me. It struck me then: Work is not the whole story. The commute, the connections, the rhythm of showing up – they are all part of it.
I cannot control every change – new policies, shifting schedules, unexpected crises. But I can choose how I meet them. For me, that means embracing the transitions. Playing a song on the train that always lifts my mood. Taking a 10-minute walk to get a tea that resets my mind before I turn on my laptop. Even noticing a fellow passenger holding a bright bouquet of sunflowers the other day reminded me that I am part of something bigger – that we are all just finding our way home.
Perhaps this is what “return to office” really means. Not just a return to a building. But a return to the version of us that is grounded, resilient and ready to keep going.
Maggie Wang Maric lives in Toronto.