In the Bhagavad Gita, there is a famous line, translated below:

You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.

It sounds stingy, doesn't it? Like something a master might say to a slave. As an American, it definitely rubs me the wrong way at first glance. The American Dream is all about being rewarded if one works hard and follows the rules. The quote seems more communist than capitalist.

Is there any wisdom in these famed words?

Let's think about it as an experiment. Perhaps you're working out a lot these days because you want to look good and get more attention from the object of your affection, or attract more suitors. Or maybe you're just vain. Perhaps, your focus is the end result. You flex your abs, imagining how much better your six-pack will look when you lose ten pounds.

Perhaps, however, the workouts you're doing are somehow cheapened with the above mentality. You might view them as an inconvenience, a means to an end. If only you could speed up time, in fact! The sooner you arrive at that moment in which you have a six-pack, the sooner you can start reeling in that paramour.

As the Pixies once said, "Where is your mind?"

By taking some focus away from the present moment, or merely viewing it as an expedient, we miss out on the only reality we have access to - the moment right in front of us. Whatever we're doing in that moment becomes a bit less real, and a bit more of a multitask. Perhaps we deny that mundane moment the honor it deserves. And thinking back, it fades into nothingness, since we weren't paying enough attention to it to create any sort of memory.

Let's bring this over to the GRE. As Greg once said, "There are no guarantees in test prep". I would agree: there is no guarantee that doing x amount of work will produce a certain score increase. You are only entitled to the work. But perhaps, accepting that will make you more present and in tune with the work you're doing. Perhaps the quality of that work will improve with that increased focus. Maybe you'll be less anxious about your eventual score, since you won't be thinking about it.

You'll also probably be more likely to think critically about what work needs to be done next, as described in the verbal and quant progression videos.

Since you can't go forward or backward in time, you really are only entitled to this moment.

The Bottom Line

It's counterintuitive, but we can probably help ourselves in GRE prep in a couple of ways:

1. Accept you're not entitled to a certain score just because you worked hard. This helps you stay in touch with what you can actually control: the task at hand.

2. Focus on the quality of the task you're doing in this moment, rather than thinking about the next task, or the next practice test, or what score you eventually need. This will enhance the quality with which you complete that task, and will help you learn from it.