One of the most crucial messages of Krishna in Bhagwad Geeta is that we should act in accordance with our Swadharma without worrying about the results. On the surface, it appears quite counter-intuitive because we have lived almost the whole of our lives working for the results. However, if we examine it a little deeper, we will realize that probably that is the most practical message in any spiritual scripture.
None of the systems made by the human beings is perfect. We have imperfect democracies where democratically appointed leaders become Hitlers over a period of time. Leave aside other political systems such as communism. We have bureaucracies whose foundations lie in the rule book and such bureaucracies tend to make fun of the rules. You show me the person and I will tell you the rule to apply. We have organizations that are founded based on the concept of efficiency and over a period of time, they are run in one of the most inefficient ways. We have the NGOs formed around the concept of helping others and the same NGOs end up exploiting the poor and weaker section of society. We have the concept of relationship based on sharing and we find over time that there hardly remains any sharing because one or both the persons have closed themselves. The foundation of all families is love and helping each other and we see litigations among brothers and parents being ready to kill their kids in the name of their caste and religion. The entire concept of religion is developed to help people grow spiritually and over a period of time almost all religions become so narrow that they themselves become the biggest barrier to free thoughts, observation, and inquiry.
In this imperfect world, what do we expect and from whom? The moment we have an expectation, we are bound to suffer. Who has the time and energy to look beyond self-interest? People can kill their siblings for their self-interest, and leave aside helping others. Yes, there is some order because there are few who have grown spiritually and they realize the "burden of selfishness". Having realized how big the selfishness a burden is, they get rid of the same and work for the social cause. However, such people are not many in number. The majority is driven by fear. If there are enough checks and balances in a system, the majority complies with the rules, though reluctantly.
In such an imperfect ecosystem, where is the scope for expectations and therefore expectation from others is surely to bring pain and suffering. That is the reason Krishna has asked us to focus on our own Dharma, the Swadharma. The next question at hand is what is dharma. Dharma is simply our basic nature. We have so many choices during the day and we need to make choices as per our nature. For example, if an officer likes to work on a complex project, he should choose assignments that require a large volume of data to be analyzed, complicated computations, and analysis. There would not be many takers of such tasks in any organization and the moment we volunteer, we get such assignments whatever position we are in. I have seen that Data Entry Operators who are willing to take up responsibility for such complex tasks are often assigned more responsible tasks than the officers. The position in the organization is definitely not a limitation to the nature of the choices we make. We can also choose tasks that involve interactions with people. We can similarly choose the assignments that involve setting up systems and taking teams along.
If we choose the task to be done according to Swadharma, there is no problem. We will not only enjoy the task at hand but also do well therein. It will not matter at all whether the same is appreciated by others or not. On the other hand, if we choose the tasks for the sake of certain results such as promotion or appreciation, there is every likelihood that our attention will be focussed more on the anticipated rewards than the task at hand, resulting in sub-optimal performance. thus on the one hand, we do not enjoy the task because that does not suit our nature, and on the other hand, we become full of fear and anxiety of losing the reward. Thus, we often enter into a vicious cycle of fear and anxiety, become weak in character, start resorting to practices like back-biting, telling lies about colleagues, adopting shortcuts, exploiting our juniors, giving panic reactions, exploiting others, stealing their credit and slowly become sick in our cocoons. That's why the message of Krishna is so simple and easy to follow in this world. Work itself becomes the reward and we enjoy each of the moments.
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