Idea 7 of 12 2nd c. BCE to 2nd c. CE until 2018
Your part is the work itself; do it well and stop tying your peace to what comes of it.
Said again in 4 books. 3 name the Bhagavad Gita. 1 argues against it.
You may have met this advice as a line about caring for the process more than the product: do the work well and stop tying your peace to what comes of it. The earliest source we can find is the Bhagavad Gita, dated c. 2nd c. BCE to 2nd c. CE (the date is uncertain), which makes the idea more than 1,800 years old. It kept coming back, in Vivekananda’s Karma-Yoga in 1896, Gandhi’s Anasakti Yoga in 1929 and Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art in 2002, all three crediting the Gita, and in James Clear’s Atomic Habits in 2018, which credits no one that we can find. One book on this page, Wallace D. Wattles’s The Science of Getting Rich of 1910, argues the other way and makes the result the motive.
Earliest we can find
“But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward Of doing right in right! Let right deeds be Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them.”
Full text read.
Bhagavad Gita 2.47, tr. Edwin Arnold (1885).
Project Gutenberg eBook #2388, gutenberg.org/
Nothing from our reading list in between. The gap is ours, not history’s.
Cites the Bhagavad Gita
Vivekananda calls non-attachment, “to be attached to nothing while doing our work of life”, the “true solution”, and says it is found in the Gita.
“But the true solution is found in the Gita. It is the theory of non-attachment, to be attached to nothing while doing our work of life.”
Full text read.
Swami Vivekananda, Karma-Yoga, ch. VI ‘Non-attachment is complete self-abnegation’.
Conflicts
Wattles makes the result the motive: see the things you want “as if they were actually around you all the time” and yourself as owning them. He never raises letting go.
“See the things you want as if they were actually around you all the time; see yourself as owning and using them.”
Full text read.
Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich.
Project Gutenberg eBook #59844, gutenberg.org/
Cites the Bhagavad Gita, per a summary
Wikipedia’s account has Gandhi reading the Gita as teaching “selfless action” and “renouncing fruits of action”, and crediting the Gita, which his English edition calls The Gospel of Selfless Action.
“can be achieved by selfless action, by desireless action; by renouncing fruits of action”
Secondhand, from Wikipedia. M. K. Gandhi, Anasakti Yoga (1929).
This book is still in copyright, so we read an account of it, not the book.
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/
Cites the Bhagavad Gita, in his own writing
On his own site, Pressfield writes that in the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna tells Arjuna “We have the right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor”, crediting Krishna and the Gita.
“In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, ‘We have the right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor.’”
Author’s own words, from stevenpressfield.com. Steven Pressfield, The War of Art (2002).
This book is still in copyright, so we read the author’s own words about it, not the book.
stevenpressfield.com: stevenpressfield.com/
Echoes, in his own writing
On his own site, Clear writes that when you “fall in love with the process rather than the product” you need not wait for permission to be happy. He credits no one that we can find.
“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.”
Author’s own words, from jamesclear.com. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018).
This book is still in copyright, so we read the author’s own words about it, not the book.
jamesclear.com: jamesclear.com/
Still being checked
We have one account of this book that we may read, and it gives its own words, not the book’s. A second account that agrees would bring the link back.
Next idea
08 Keep your death in mindHow this page was made. AI agents did the reading. Each link was judged by two readers from different AI models, working blind; a third settled their splits (4 of 5 links on this page needed no tiebreak). Every quote was checked word for word against its source. “Full text read” means the agents read the book itself; “Author’s own words” means the author’s free writing elsewhere; “Secondhand” means a free summary or article about the book.
One idea a week, followed across time.
No. 1Small steps add up