The question arrived at 3 AM, as the most important ones often do. I was lying in bed, caught in the familiar spiral of overthinking that visits all of us when we’re trying to live with integrity in an imperfect world.
Is everything we do harming the Earth?
The thought felt paralyzing. Every car I drive requires mined metals. Every house I live in demands cut trees. Even the milk in my coffee connects to systems I question. And here I was, considering following my family’s path in the goldsmith business, using mined gold to build a livelihood that could help others.
Was I fooling myself? Was there something fundamentally wrong at the core of this choice?
I brought this question to my mother the next morning, expecting comfort but receiving something far more valuable: clarity.
The Weight of Perfect Paralysis
My mother shared the story of Arjuna, standing frozen on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Here was a warrior, born to fight, trained to protect, suddenly unable to act because action felt impossible to reconcile with righteousness.
“How can I fight for what’s right,” Arjuna asked Krishna, “if fighting itself feels wrong?”
The paralysis was complete. In trying to avoid all harm, Arjuna was about to abandon his purpose entirely.
This is where most of us live: caught between the desire to do good and the fear that our good isn’t good enough. We become so focused on the impossibility of perfection that we choose the safety of inaction.
But Krishna’s response cut through this false dilemma with surgical precision.
The Potter’s Dilemma
My mother offered an analogy that rewired my thinking completely: “When a potter steps on his wheel, he unknowingly crushes millions of tiny organisms in the soil. But if he stopped making pots, hundreds of people would go without water. What’s worse—the invisible harm or the visible suffering we could prevent?”
This wasn’t about choosing the lesser evil. It was about recognizing that the world operates in systems, not in isolated moral equations. The potter doesn’t step on his wheel to cause harm; he steps on it to serve life. The intention transforms the action.
The breakthrough came when I realized that perfect hands are often empty hands. The cleanest conscience sometimes belongs to the person who does nothing at all.
Beyond the Myth of Clean Living
We’ve been sold a myth: that ethical living means leaving no footprint, causing no disruption, creating no ripples. This myth is seductive because it feels pure, but it’s ultimately selfish. It prioritizes our own moral comfort over our potential contribution.
Real dharma, purposeful action aligned with our deepest values, doesn’t demand perfection. It demands engagement. It asks us to step into the messy complexity of existence and find ways to serve something larger than our own peace of mind.
The goldsmith business, like every meaningful endeavor, requires compromise. Yes, it involves mining and refining. But it also feeds families, celebrates love, preserves culture, and creates beauty that can outlast generations. The question isn’t whether it’s perfectly clean—nothing is. The question is whether it’s purposefully aligned.
The Tragedy of Noble Inaction
My mother also told me about Bheeshma, one of the most respected figures in the Mahabharata and one of its most tragic. Bheeshma took a vow never to be king, believing this honored his father and upheld righteousness. But when corruption poisoned his kingdom, when injustice thrived in the royal court, Bheeshma stood silent, bound by his own noble intentions.
He thought he was being virtuous. In reality, he was enabling harm through his very virtue.
This hit me like cold water. Sometimes our highest ideals become our greatest limitations. Sometimes the most ethical thing we can do is break our own rules, challenge our own comfort, and act despite our uncertainty.
Bheeshma’s tragedy wasn’t that he lacked character; it was that he confused inaction with integrity.
Your Dharma Is Your Unique Contribution
Here’s what shifted everything for me: dharma isn’t about following someone else’s blueprint for righteousness. It’s about discovering your unique way of contributing to the world’s healing.
My dharma is to help people, feed people, and uplift those around me. Yours will be different, but equally essential. The key is recognizing that your dharma isn’t something you stumble upon accidentally—it’s something you choose, refine, and commit to daily.
When I think about building wealth now, I ask: Why am I doing this? When I consider starting a business or pursuing meaningful work, I return to: Will this help others thrive?
These aren’t questions you answer once. They’re questions that guide every small decision, every daily action, every moment when you must choose between comfort and contribution.
The Practice of Imperfect Action
Ethical living isn’t about achieving moral perfection; it’s about maintaining conscious intention. It’s about listening for the whisper of purpose even when the world is loud with criticism and doubt.
This means accepting that your best efforts will sometimes fall short. It means understanding that perfect is often the enemy of good. Most importantly, it means recognizing that the alternative to imperfect action isn’t perfect action; it’s no action at all.
Moving Forward with Purpose
That conversation with my mother didn’t give me all the answers. I still wrestle with questions about sustainability, impact, and the complex systems we all navigate. But it gave me something more valuable: permission to act despite uncertainty.
The world doesn’t need more people paralyzed by the impossibility of perfection. It needs more people willing to engage with complexity, to serve something larger than their own comfort, to take one honest step forward at a time.
Your dharma is calling. It’s messy, imperfect, and absolutely essential.
The only question left is: will you answer?
Check out my other recent posts:
The Most Underrated Skill of 2025: Writing Online
Learning to Master Myself: What Two Verses from the Gita Are Teaching Me by Saisuprit Choutha
Becoming Who I Want to Be, One Habit at a Time by Saisuprit Choutha
Saisuprit Choutha: Embracing Authenticity in Online Writing
🔗 Find Me Online
🌐 Personal Website
📄 Google Site
✍️ Substack
🧠 Quora
📌 Pinterest
📚 Medium
🧾 About
🔗 Linktree
🎥 YouTube
👤 Gravatar
🧵 Reddit
Saisuprit Choutha 