25 August 2024: Detached Action

"Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."
— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I have been a huge believer in detached action. Arduous though it is to act in such a way, it is the purest form of action, bringing only good, casting no shadow, and always benefiting society at large.

Marcus Aurelius writes somewhat the same in his book, Meditations.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live, and it is in your power. Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, unpretentious, a friend of justice, kind, full of affection, strong for your proper work. Do detached acts with a whole heart, expecting nothing in return. Be satisfied with the smallest good deed, and think that no one will notice it.

"You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction."

— Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47