Chapter 2Verse 37

This is Krishna cutting through the paralysis with plain arithmetic. Arjuna is frozen because he's staring at the outcome, so Krishna walks both outcomes forward and shows that neither one is the disaster he fears. Once the result stops being the thing that decides everything, it's possible to just stand up and act.

Krishna does the arithmetic for Arjuna. If you're killed, you reach heaven. If you win, you rule the earth. Either way it isn't the catastrophe you're imagining, so stand up and act. Once you stop staring at the outcome, moving becomes possible.

In context this is Krishna working through both branches of the outcome to show that neither is the disaster Arjuna fears. The reasoning is specific to that setting, but the move is general: paralysis comes from fixating on a result you've decided you can't survive, and it breaks when you actually look at the outcomes and find that you can. Once the result stops being the thing that decides everything, the next step gets clear.

When you're frozen before a big decision, it's usually because one outcome feels unbearable and you're refusing to look straight at it. Try actually walking it forward. If this fails, then what, concretely? Often the honest answer is that you'd cope, adjust, and carry on. Naming that out loud tends to drain the paralysis, because the thing keeping you stuck was the unexamined fear, not the situation.