Anxious

The line everyone knows, and it is genuinely the point: you are entitled to the work, never to the result. Anxiety lives almost entirely in the gap between those two.

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि

Your right is to the action alone, never to its fruits. Do not act for the sake of the fruit, and do not be attached to inaction either.

Notice that success is named alongside failure as something to stay even about. We prepare for disaster and are then destabilised by things going well.

योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते

Steady in yoga, do your work — letting go of attachment, even in success and failure alike. That evenness is what yoga means.

Yoga is defined here as skill in action — not as escape from it. The remedy offered is to get better at the doing, not to stop caring.

बुद्धियुक्तो जहातीह उभे सुकृतदुष्कृते
तस्माद्योगाय युज्यस्व योगः कर्मसु कौशलम्

One joined to understanding lets go of both good and bad deeds. So devote yourself to yoga. Yoga is skill in action.

The whole teaching compressed to one instruction: set it down and stop carrying it alone. It arrives at the very end, after seventeen chapters of argument, which is worth noticing.

सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज
अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः

Let go of every duty and take refuge in me alone. I will free you from all wrongdoing. Do not grieve.