When Dreams Slip Away, Gita Comforts: Effort Matters More Than Success
Riya Kumari | Apr 27, 2025, 23:59 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
You know that thing movies do where the scrappy underdog pulls an all-nighter, downs seventeen espressos, has a minor breakdown at 3:12 a.m., and then BAM—success? Cue soaring music. Applause. Freeze frame. Yeah, turns out, real life doesn’t come with a soundtrack. In real life, you pull the all-nighter, forget the submission deadline was yesterday, spill coffee on your laptop, and cry quietly in the stationery aisle of a sad grocery store.
There are moments in life when no amount of trying seems enough. You work late, you give your heart, you show up again and again — and still, the dream slips through your fingers like water. In those moments, it’s easy to believe you’ve failed. Easy to feel small. Forgotten. Like somehow you missed the one train that was meant for you. But maybe that's the lie the world sells too easily — that life is only about arriving. The Bhagavad Gita, with a quiet kind of courage, reminds us otherwise: "You have a right to your actions, not to the fruits of your actions." It sounds simple. It isn’t. It means: you are not here to control how your life is received. You are here to live it fully, honestly — no matter the applause, no matter the ending.
When Effort Feels Invisible
Nobody teaches us what to do when our best efforts don’t lead to glory. There are no awards for the jobs you didn’t get.
No standing ovations for the courage it took to begin again after heartbreak. No shiny medals for the quiet, private battles you fight when nobody's watching.
And yet — those are the moments that define you. Not the ones when you were celebrated. But the ones when you were not and still stayed loyal to the work, to yourself, to your own growth. Effort matters because it shapes who you are, not what you own. And who you are, not what you achieve — is what you take with you when the dust of everything else finally settles.
Success Is Not The Only Measure
Success is slippery. Some people chase it their whole lives and never feel satisfied. Some people catch it, only to find it emptier than they imagined. The Gita does not promise success. It promises peace, the kind that comes when you know you did your part, regardless of how the world responded.
In a culture obsessed with results, this is radical advice: Your job is not to guarantee the outcome. Your job is to give the best of yourself, without bargaining for rewards. Because if your happiness is tied to winning, you will always live in fear. But if your happiness is tied to how you live, you are free, truly free, no matter what happens next.
What If The Effort Was Always Enough?
Maybe the real tragedy is not in failing. Maybe it’s in believing that failure ever had the right to define you. Every time you loved someone who didn’t love you back, and you kept your heart soft anyway. Every time you gave your best to a dream that didn’t survive. Every time you stayed kind in a world that rewarded cruelty.
You were succeeding. Not in the way people measure it on paper. But in the way it matters most — quietly, deeply, irreversibly. You were becoming someone the world cannot take away from you. And that matters more than any outcome ever could.
A Different Kind of Success Story
Maybe life isn’t about chasing the highest peaks. Maybe it's about planting your flag in the ground, even if nobody else sees it, and saying — "I was here. I gave what I had. I did not betray myself." That’s the kind of success the Gita speaks of.
Not loud. Not glamorous. But real enough to carry with you when nothing else feels certain. And maybe — just maybe — that is the only kind of success that was ever worth wanting.
So when dreams slip away, don't call yourself a failure. Call yourself a warrior who stayed true to the fight. And remember: the effort was never wasted. It was the point all along.
When Effort Feels Invisible
No standing ovations for the courage it took to begin again after heartbreak. No shiny medals for the quiet, private battles you fight when nobody's watching.
And yet — those are the moments that define you. Not the ones when you were celebrated. But the ones when you were not and still stayed loyal to the work, to yourself, to your own growth. Effort matters because it shapes who you are, not what you own. And who you are, not what you achieve — is what you take with you when the dust of everything else finally settles.
Success Is Not The Only Measure
In a culture obsessed with results, this is radical advice: Your job is not to guarantee the outcome. Your job is to give the best of yourself, without bargaining for rewards. Because if your happiness is tied to winning, you will always live in fear. But if your happiness is tied to how you live, you are free, truly free, no matter what happens next.
What If The Effort Was Always Enough?
You were succeeding. Not in the way people measure it on paper. But in the way it matters most — quietly, deeply, irreversibly. You were becoming someone the world cannot take away from you. And that matters more than any outcome ever could.
A Different Kind of Success Story
Not loud. Not glamorous. But real enough to carry with you when nothing else feels certain. And maybe — just maybe — that is the only kind of success that was ever worth wanting.
So when dreams slip away, don't call yourself a failure. Call yourself a warrior who stayed true to the fight. And remember: the effort was never wasted. It was the point all along.