The Art of Not Trying
Your heart makes every day Christmas, your mind is like China’s factories
Logged back onto my girlboss laptop for some badass girlblogging and nostalgic girlreminiscing.
“There is a certain joy in having not to try, Avy,” he says as we walk down an unevenly cobbled road, “you don’t have to stress, you are and that is why you get.” “It’s not that easy,” I say with a half-hurt chuckle, yet a smile — “Oh, yeah?” he replies back, “Let’s see; when was the last time you had to try? Hmm? You ask and you receive, you smile and people give, you wish, and it appears the next day. Your heart makes every day Christmas, your mind is like China’s factories.” Wow. What am I? All I know, at this moment is, I am a bit lost. Yet he goes on, “You see, most people live their lives on a half-hearted hypefury of cold emails, they have to give and prove in an endless loop to appear worth it, it’s a shame, a real pity, they’ll never know what it’s like to just be, you and I, we breathe and that’s why we’re worth it.”
I have been thinking about it — the art of not trying isn’t about sitting still. It’s not laziness, apathy, or some excuse to quit. No, it’s the exact opposite. It’s the mastery of knowing when to step back because the world has already bent enough to your will. It’s the realization that the universe doesn’t owe you anything—not results, not validation, not applause. And that’s okay because you don’t need it. Not trying isn’t about giving up; it’s about letting go. But how does this work? According to my little narration above, he meant, we have been trying subconsciously ever since we were kids. Every debate we’ve won, every adult we impressed, every laurel has been a book on our shelf of ‘trying,’ and if we try anymore then the bookshelf will overflow and topple, all laurels coming crashing down.
The great ones know this. They know the feeling of pushing too hard, of clawing at something until their own desperation chokes the life out of it. You can see it in fighters who throw punches without precision, in artists who force their craft until it’s soulless, in people who grip the world so tightly it slips through their fingers. It’s like the poor man who smiles when you finish the glass of water he offers you, and the rich man who sneers when you leave not a drop behind. “Leave the parsley on your plate, and be charming and detached, and yet amuuuuuused!” The higher man knows when to push—and when to release. The art of not trying is surrender, not to failure, but to flow. You don’t chase the river; you step into it.
It’s not passivity. Don’t confuse it with weakness. It’s Newton’s third law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s the kind of strength that comes with knowing you’ve already done the work. You’ve bled, you’ve fought, you’ve built the fire, and now it’s time to stop fanning the flames. The art of not trying is trust—trust in your preparation, trust in your instincts, trust that the universe doesn’t need you to micromanage its every move. It’s the courage to stop. To let the arrow fly after you’ve aimed, to watch the seeds you planted break through the soil on their own time.
Stop crouching. The tighter you make your fist to hold onto money, the fewer coins you will be able to hold. Let go, arms wide open, welcome abundance!
But this is where most people fail. They can’t handle the waiting, the stillness. They try harder, louder, faster—and burn out. The higher man doesn’t flinch at the silence. He knows the world will catch up to him because it has no choice. He’s already aligned with something greater than force: rhythm, timing, inevitability.
I don’t put in lesser effort; I care about honest and smarter effort. It’s stepping out of your own way. It’s letting the storm calm itself, letting the dust settle, letting the work you’ve done speak louder than your need to control it. It’s confidence—no, certainty—that what’s meant to come to you already knows the way.
There is a law called the law of detachment, and it’s brutal in its simplicity: you cannot grip the outcome. The harder you cling, the more it slips away. Like sand through a clenched fist, or a flame smothered by too much air, the result you crave is killed by your obsession with it. Detachment isn’t apathy; it’s freedom. It’s understanding that the universe has its own timing, and your job is not to dominate it, but to dance with it.
You’ve planted the seeds. You’ve watered the soil. Now you step back and let the sun do its work. You don’t keep digging up the roots to see if they’re growing. Do you see it now? The art of not trying lives in this detachment, this surrender to the process after you’ve done your part. You are not passive, but you are at peace. You’re not forcing the wheel to turn; you’re riding its momentum.
Most people think control is strength. But control is brittle. It cracks under pressure. Detachment, on the other hand, is fluid. It bends, it adapts, it survives. Detachment isn’t giving up on the goal—it’s releasing the desperation for it. It’s standing tall, knowing that whether it happens or not, you will remain whole. The law of detachment asks for trust—not in luck, not in fate, but in yourself. In the fire you’ve already walked through. In the foundation you’ve already built.
Here’s the paradox: the more you detach, the closer you get to what you want. Why? Because when you stop chasing, you stop running in circles. You conserve your energy. You focus not on what you don’t have but on who you are becoming. And when you become the kind of person who doesn’t need to chase, the world starts chasing you.
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