Trying to Stop Trying
Updated: Mar 13
Sometime over the summer I became suspicious of the word “trying.”
The seemingly benign phrase: “I’m just trying to [fill in the blank],” began to sound off to me, like a cracked church bell, heavy and effortful.
Trying at work, trying at home, trying in our relationships with children, parents, partners, trying to get over a loss, trying to keep the peace, trying to let someone down easy, trying to “manifest” the life we want for ourselves (a topic for another time), trying to stay on top of our inbox…
So much trying.
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“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Isn’t that a lesson we want to teach our kids: don’t give up at failure, keep at it, learn from loss, broaden your horizons?
So why in my practice, and in my life, when someone says — when I say — “I’m just trying so hard,” is it often followed by great heaving sobs?
Why all this heaviness around trying?
***
I have been trying to write this article for weeks now. Seven weeks to be precise.
Every time I re-read what I’ve written I think: nope. Not yet. Let me try just a little bit harder.
The English word “essay” and the French word “essai” both come from the French verb essayer: “to try.”
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When I say, “I’m trying,” I notice a stuck feeling in my body.
A contraction around my solar plexus. As if I’m pushing against a great weight. Like when I move the kitchen table over so I can vacuum. (Rare, but it does happen every once in a while.)
When I am trying, I am invested in an outcome: trying to find the right moment to say something difficult to my partner, to ask for a raise, to publish a book or a paper (or a substack article.)
When I am trying, I have a result in mind, a result I have pre-determined and to which I am very attached. Since the result is meaningful to me, I put a lot of effort into achieving it.
But how much control do I really have over the result of my words and actions?
Can I accept the consequences what I say and do without modelling the results beforehand? Without telling myself a story about what my action will achieve, without predicting outcomes, without imagining in advance other peoples’ reactions?
Can I take action without being attached to a result? Can I take action without trying?
***
When Max and Leo ask me what I am doing, there is a subtle difference between saying: “I’m making lasagna” and “I am trying to make lasagna.”
“Trying” implies imminent failure: “I’m trying to make lasagna (but don’t get too excited, it will probably end up like that gratin dauphinois last week – inedible).”
***
Maybe trying has to do with an outside vision of ourselves, what we imagine our boss, partner, kids, parents, friends, dog expects of us. Maybe we try when we feel the outside eye upon us.
Is that why it feels so heavy? Because when we are trying, we are mainly trying to please? Or to satisfy?
Who?
Who has mandated all this trying? Who are we trying so hard to please?
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Trying: Originating in 1718 as a present-participle adjective from the verb try, meaning "subject to strain," it describes something distressing or hard to endure. (Online Etymology Dictionary)
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I think trying is also a mode of protection.
My son Leo, who is 9, regularly yells: “I’m trying, I’m just a kid!”
Mainly it’s when I ask him to do something like get ready for school or brush his teeth. He yells it like a disclaimer. What he really means is: back off, lady.
Maybe when we say we are trying, what we are really doing is putting up a wall to ward off criticism.
Maybe that’s where the tears come from: when the rampart of trying begins to crumble, when, despite all our best intentions, we fail, or are criticized, and find ourselves without protection, caught out in the cold and exhausted from all the effort we’ve been putting into our trying.
***
What happens if we root out the places where we are trying so hard, too hard, and let that effort go?
What happens if we do the minimum?
What happens if we stop trying?
What space opens up?
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Try: Middle English: from Old French trier ‘sift’, of unknown origin. (Oxford Online Dictionary)
***
Last June I spent the afternoon with an old friend who told me he had been feeling overwhelmed and had decided to “sift” every new project, every new opportunity, by asking himself: “Does this feel light? Or does it feel heavy?” If it feels light, he says yes, if it feels heavy, he says no.
***
OK. Time to stop trying to publish this “essay” and just publish it.
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