‘Ordinary’ life

Seeking calm from the panic of an impending Christmas for which I am inadequately prepared, I sought refuge in reading, and came on this:

“Storming a breach, conducting an embassy, ruling a nation, are glittering deeds. Rebuking, laughing, buying, selling, loving, hating and living together gently with your household — and with yourself — not getting slack nor belying yourself, is something more remarkable, more rare and more difficult. Whatever people may say, such secluded lives sustain in that way duties which are as least as hard and as tense as those of other lives.” [Montaigne, Essays.]