You Suffer Because You Keep Trying to Fix What Isn’t Yours: Gita Explains
Riya Kumari | Jul 23, 2025, 13:44 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
There’s a special kind of exhaustion that hits you when you’ve spent your entire week solving problems that were never yours to begin with. It starts with a friend’s relationship drama that somehow becomes your responsibility, spirals into soothing your boss’s fragile ego after he messed up his own client pitch, and peaks when you're emotionally parenting your emotionally unavailable partner. Congratulations. You’ve become the unpaid crisis manager of your social circle.
You want to be a good person. But somewhere along the way, “good” quietly turned into “responsible for everyone else’s mess.” It happens slowly. You listen when they cry. You help when they panic. You stay even when they disappear. You start making space for everyone’s chaos, until suddenly, you’re carrying more than you were ever meant to hold. You call it compassion. But it feels like exhaustion. And the Gita, with its fierce, clear-eyed honesty, says something most of us aren’t ready to admit: “You are not responsible for the outcome. Only your action.” That’s not just spiritual poetry. That’s strategy for living.
1. Not Everything That Breaks Is Yours to Fix
You think it’s love to keep helping. To keep showing up. To keep saying yes. But there’s a difference between being kind and being consumed. We are taught to be selfless. But sometimes, what we call selflessness is really fear. Fear of being abandoned. Fear of being seen as selfish. Fear that if we stop fixing, we stop mattering.
But here’s what Krishna told Arjuna, who was literally collapsing under the weight of responsibility: “Do your duty, but do not attach yourself to the result.” In simpler terms:
Be present. Be honest. Do what’s right. But stop trying to play God in other people’s lives. Because when you do, two things happen:
You suffer for outcomes you can’t control.
They never learn to take ownership of their own path.
2. Why You're Exhausted: You're Operating Outside Your Dharma
Dharma isn’t just a grand concept in a dusty book. It’s your boundary line. Your “this is mine to carry” and “this is not.” The reason you feel drained is not because you're giving too much. It's because you're giving in the wrong direction. You’re fighting other people’s wars while neglecting your own. You’re showing up for battles you weren’t built to fight. You’re repairing bridges that the other person keeps burning.
And Krishna, with the clarity of someone who sees what we refuse to, says: “Better to fail in your own dharma than succeed in someone else’s.” Let that land. It’s not your job to fix them. It’s your job to stay true to yourself.
3. Letting Go Isn't Cruel. It's Conscious
We confuse love with attachment. Support with sacrifice. Help with overextension. But the Gita doesn’t tell you to stop loving. It tells you to love without losing yourself. To serve without seeking control. To act without chasing applause. Letting go doesn’t mean you stop caring. It means you stop carrying what was never yours.
You can love people and still let them be accountable. You can support someone and still say “this is your path, not mine.” You can help, but only when help empowers, not enables.
4. Your Healing Begins Where Their Responsibility Starts
The most radical thing you can do for your peace is to give back what was never yours. The anxiety you carry about someone else’s choices? Not yours. The guilt you feel because they didn’t change? Not yours. The pressure to fix what they broke in themselves? Still not yours.
And until you return what doesn’t belong to you, your own life will always feel heavier than it needs to be. Krishna’s lesson is not passive. It’s not “let life happen to you.” It’s fierce clarity: Do your part. Then release. That’s not apathy. That’s wisdom. That’s not abandonment. That’s freedom.
If You Need a Reminder, Let It Be This:
You are allowed to stop managing everyone else’s emotional chaos. You are allowed to not explain your boundaries. You are allowed to live with peace, even if it disappoints someone else. Because maybe your suffering didn’t begin when someone hurt you.
Maybe it began when you started believing you were supposed to carry the pain for them. And maybe now… You’re allowed to put it down. Let people be responsible for their own healing. That’s their dharma. And you? You stay loyal to yours.
1. Not Everything That Breaks Is Yours to Fix
Goal
( Image credit : Unsplash )
You think it’s love to keep helping. To keep showing up. To keep saying yes. But there’s a difference between being kind and being consumed. We are taught to be selfless. But sometimes, what we call selflessness is really fear. Fear of being abandoned. Fear of being seen as selfish. Fear that if we stop fixing, we stop mattering.
But here’s what Krishna told Arjuna, who was literally collapsing under the weight of responsibility: “Do your duty, but do not attach yourself to the result.” In simpler terms:
Be present. Be honest. Do what’s right. But stop trying to play God in other people’s lives. Because when you do, two things happen:
You suffer for outcomes you can’t control.
They never learn to take ownership of their own path.
2. Why You're Exhausted: You're Operating Outside Your Dharma
Thanks
( Image credit : Unsplash )
Dharma isn’t just a grand concept in a dusty book. It’s your boundary line. Your “this is mine to carry” and “this is not.” The reason you feel drained is not because you're giving too much. It's because you're giving in the wrong direction. You’re fighting other people’s wars while neglecting your own. You’re showing up for battles you weren’t built to fight. You’re repairing bridges that the other person keeps burning.
And Krishna, with the clarity of someone who sees what we refuse to, says: “Better to fail in your own dharma than succeed in someone else’s.” Let that land. It’s not your job to fix them. It’s your job to stay true to yourself.
3. Letting Go Isn't Cruel. It's Conscious
No
( Image credit : Unsplash )
We confuse love with attachment. Support with sacrifice. Help with overextension. But the Gita doesn’t tell you to stop loving. It tells you to love without losing yourself. To serve without seeking control. To act without chasing applause. Letting go doesn’t mean you stop caring. It means you stop carrying what was never yours.
You can love people and still let them be accountable. You can support someone and still say “this is your path, not mine.” You can help, but only when help empowers, not enables.
4. Your Healing Begins Where Their Responsibility Starts
Care
( Image credit : Unsplash )
The most radical thing you can do for your peace is to give back what was never yours. The anxiety you carry about someone else’s choices? Not yours. The guilt you feel because they didn’t change? Not yours. The pressure to fix what they broke in themselves? Still not yours.
And until you return what doesn’t belong to you, your own life will always feel heavier than it needs to be. Krishna’s lesson is not passive. It’s not “let life happen to you.” It’s fierce clarity: Do your part. Then release. That’s not apathy. That’s wisdom. That’s not abandonment. That’s freedom.
If You Need a Reminder, Let It Be This:
Maybe it began when you started believing you were supposed to carry the pain for them. And maybe now… You’re allowed to put it down. Let people be responsible for their own healing. That’s their dharma. And you? You stay loyal to yours.