Don't Try So Hard

Something I heard yesterday goes against all I stand for, yet it makes sense to me and I feel it is something I should hold to.  It was said “don’t try so hard.”  I can actually see the sense of that from one point.
It is a shared space.  I will always actually give something my best shot.  I will put my all into something so that when it is over I know it is not a case I still have more to give, and the outcome could have been different if I had given myself wholly to it.  Giving myself wholly to something is a given for me.
What is being said reminds me of something someone said to me years ago when they passed onto me a stamp collection.  I was wrapped to get it, and it has taken me ages to go through it, and I still am, but they said at the time something that has stayed with me the whole time.
“Hold them loosely.”  That to me is the key to “don’t try so hard.”  I will always give my all, but it is realizing that my all can be made redundant in a moment.  I really have no control over outcomes.  What and while I can control something I will, but it is with the understanding that at a moments notice, my part could be over.
I feel I have a responsibility to do something well.  To make provision as best I can for myself and those I feel want to and those I need to.  Yet I know I am not the first to feel that way and nor will I be the last.  I am sure there were many who felt that way in say 861.
Yet their role is over.  Perhaps what they did was built on.  Perhaps their work was inspirational and fool proof.  A firm foundation upon which to build.  That to me is the pinnacle of achievement.  Building something that will last.  Something that bears good fruit and positively impacts others.
So for me the whole point of not trying so hard is not to not do well, but to do my best while holding something loosely.