All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions originally worked with: reality.  Reality-insight says get a sense of immediate politics and history, get control of your own time; master the twenty-four hours.  Do it well, without self-pity.  It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning.  One move is not better than the other, each can be quite boring, and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition.  Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms.  Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick--don't let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits.  Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we many do our "practice" which will put us on a "path--it is our path.

from Mindfulness and Meaningful Work, by Claude Whitmyer