Sisyphus. You remember him from your seventh-grade mythology studies. Sisyphus, condemned by the Olympian gods to spend all eternity in fruitless labor, pushes a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back, again, and again. Nothing could be more frustrating, except, perhaps, daily driving across Houston with its 617 square miles of sprawl, crisscrossed by 16,000 miles of roads, strung with more than 2,200 traffic lights, and marked by nearly a million street sighs. Getting up every morning, driving to a job, doing routine tasks at work each day, returning home, watching television until bedtime, only to arise again and again could be considered a Sisyphean task, a rut job–unless we develop the proper perspective.

We can transcend the absurdity of life’s duties by devoting ourselves so completely to our labors–paying attention to details, doing the best we can in our work each day–that we save no time for reflection on our rut occupation. A second way to view our jobs is to see them as a service to others thus making them meaningful. When we are content with and enjoy our possessions, accept our fate, and are happy in our work this is a gift of God. Those who seldom reflect on the routine find their rut job an open road to success.