One of the nicest things about traveling is that it forces you into relatively unfamiliar situations, which breaks the pattern of daily routine. So while normally you can cruise through the day on an autopilot, being on the road makes you more aware of the present moment.
I think that with some discipline it should be possible to interrupt the pattern of the everyday grind by making conscious departures from the routine without actually going on a trip. Like working at a cafe instead of the office, going for a run instead of lifting weights, wearing gym strip instead of uniform to school (as my daughter’s class did today) or skipping kendo practice to go for a swim with the family instead. I really like routine, because it frees up a lot of processing power in my brain, but it really binds me and sometimes makes me lose sight of the original motivation for establishing it. So it feels liberating to be able to break the self-imposed rules every once in a while. In that sense, discipline (not to keep up the routine, but to step out of it) really does equal freedom.
