When clarity hurts before it heals
Inspired by the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 – Sankhya Yoga
Arjuna still stands in the middle of the battlefield – bow lowered, mind spinning.
He’s poured out his fear, his guilt, his doubts.
And then Krishna finally speaks
“You have a right to your actions, but never to the fruits of your actions.” (Gita 2.47)
It’s not comfort. It’s correction.
Because Arjuna’s problem wasn’t just fear. It was obsession – the need to know how it will end before he begins.
It is the same trap most of us fall into.
The modern battlefield
Different battlefield. Same pattern.
A close friend, a product manager, once told me how their team spent months building a launch – late nights, endless reviews, small wins along the way. But when the metrics dropped, users didn’t adopt, and feedback was slow, the energy collapsed.
Another friend, a founder, hit every milestone only to have an investor back out because “the market wasn’t ready.
We call it accountability. Krishna called it attachment.
When your energy depends on the scoreboard, motivation becomes fragile. You start working for the numbers instead of working through the numbers.
I’ve been there too.
When the idea to start mindspringlife came to me, it wasn’t about building a brand. I just wanted to write, learn, experiment – understand how words, websites, and ideas work.
Then, somewhere in the middle, I started watching subscriber counts, search rankings, and impressions. The very metrics I never cared about started defining how “successful” I felt.
What began as expression quietly became expectation. That’s how attachment sneaks in – disguised as ambition.
When results become the boss
Somewhere between ambition and anxiety, we start serving the result instead of the purpose.
You can tell when it happens:
The irony – the more we chase control, the less we actually have.
Arjuna froze because he wanted certainty. Krishna asked him to trade certainty for clarity
“Do your duty and let the outcome follow.”
Trusting the process when you can’t see progress
This is where Krishna’s message gets hardest to live. Because trusting the process sounds wise but feels terrible when results don’t follow.
My daughter is in her board year. She’s brilliant with language and ideas but struggles with subjects that demand logic by formula – math and science. Before her exams, we agreed on one rule: focus on effort, not outcome. Give your best and leave the rest. And she did.
Yet, when results came, her marks in those two subjects were low.
My first reaction wasn’t calm – it was anger. In that moment, I forgot my own advice. I wasn’t seeing her effort; I was measuring outcomes.
It hit me later – she had trusted the process. I hadn’t.
Some time back, a manager in my team was struggling in a new leadership role. I coached him, supported him, adjusted scope and span of control – nothing changed.
Eventually, we agreed that moving to an individual contributor role might be a better fit. I helped him find opportunities, but soon after, he resigned.
For a while, it felt like failure.
But looking back, I realized the process still worked – it preserved dignity, clarity, and choice. Not every good effort creates a good result. Sometimes, doing right means letting go.
That’s the hardest part of trusting the process: Knowing you did your bit, even when the world doesn’t applaud.
What Krishna was really saying
Krishna wasn’t asking Arjuna to stop caring. He was asking him to stop depending.
He wasn’t anti-success, he was anti-attachment.
Because attachment clouds judgment, and clarity begins only when you let go.
The moment you detach from results, your energy returns to the work itself.
You stop performing. You start creating.
That’s why Arjuna finally picked up his bow again – not because he knew he’d win, but because he knew why he must fight.
The bigger lesson
Most of us don’t burn out from overwork. We burn out from over expectation. We forget that you can control effort, not outcomes.
That peace doesn’t come from things going your way – it comes from knowing you gave your best either way.
So next time the numbers disappoint, the plan derails, or the result doesn’t land – pause.
Ask yourself: Did I do my part with honesty and effort?
If yes, then your work is done.
Because the Gita reminds us
“Freedom is not in winning. It’s in not needing to win.”
My Arjuna moment
Each of us has our Arjuna moment – that point where we do everything right and still face an outcome we didn’t want. Mine came as a father, a manager, and a creator – three different roles, same lesson.
You can guide, build, love, and lead – but you can’t control the result.
Because when you stop measuring the worth of your effort by what it produced, you start to see the quiet growth it left behind – in you, in others, and in how you show up next time.
That’s when work becomes lighter, and life feels good enough.
Written by Vibhor Jain © 2025 | Originally published at mindspringlife.com