Right View is the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path - understanding Cause and Effect and the Four Noble Truth. Right Intention is defined as thoughts directed towards harmlessness, free from ill-will and free from cruelty. These two factors of the Noble Eightfold Path guide our speech, and our actions, and our livelihood.
So in our work, we try to find a livelihood that is not harmful to ourselves or others, that fulfills a beneficial function of society, because all of us are interconnected to each other and we depend on each others labors for our survival. In sales, yes, everybody needs clothes, blankets, these types of things, so sales is not a wrong livelihood, it provides us with necessities for survival and for living our lives.
Household chores, everybody needs to take care of their dwelling, day-to-day living, etc. The Four Requisites are food, clothes, shelter and medicine. So bringing a compassionate intention towards our actions can help. Our household chores can help us to develop our meditation practice, our mindfulness, to be aware, to be present, it can be part of our practice. So out of compassion to ourselves we would like to be present in our every day actions, developing mindfulness and the understanding of Dukkha and the cause of it, in our every day life.
Compassion is essential for the practice, because it is very easy to go through our life and just be on automatic pilot; not seeing the value of the human life, to develop our mind higher, and these everyday activities can be a means to develop it. Compassion to ourselves and compassion to others is very helpful to guide us through our every day life. We have seen people change from companies that sell products that are not very useful for society to selling products for non-profit organizations. It is not necessarily so important what you do, rather it is very important how you do it, and the purpose behind doing it.