Success at Not Trying by Vinh

Success at Not Trying by Vinh - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

One popular cinematic quote that echoes throughout our society is “Do or do not. There is no try.” by Yoda of Star Wars. Yoda’s sentiments summarize the key ideas described in the book I read called Trying Not To Try by Edward Slingerland. This book should be read by all high school students before they graduate due to its extensive practicality. Dr. Slingerland documents the timeless wisdom of all the old Chinese philosophers with their perspectives on how to achieve success in life. This success that we are all chasing, especially the kind sought after by students who are graduating high school, is paradoxical.

Teachers, parents, society are all people who have taught us at a young age that the more we work toward our goals, the more we strive, and the more we try, ultimately will land us closer to achieving them. However, more often than not, there have been cases where this sort of conscious effort has been detrimental toward the process of achieving one’s dreams and goals.

Most students want to attend college as a means to a greater goal: finding job security which most likely begins with a college degree. But, as most hard-working students will realize, there will be a point in their education where the more studying and work that they do, the worse their skills deteriorate. Why? Most often, it is what most of the adages and values that we were taught at a young age that unconsciously influence how we approach things.

One adage is “do or die” because applying for colleges and jobs is a very competitive process. If we are not serious, then other people will get it instead of us if we do not work hard enough. One value that we were taught to treasure by older authority figures when we were younger is results. The person who loses is the person who does not achieve the results. So we started learning how to set goals, how to set deadlines how to prioritize “our growth” in the hopes of achieving a timed goal.

But what about the times when we do not achieve our goals? Society would shame those people as failures, as not being diligent enough, as not having the competitive drive to not get things completed. These kind of values and adages do have their relevance in the beginning when we are new to things that we wish to improve at.

But as we grow more used to the nature of how those activities work, our success is achieved more by how unaware we are by what we are doing. Sports athletes such as Michael Jordan have been great at what they do not because they know what they are doing but actually by how well they do not know how they are doing.

This phenomena is described as “being in the zone.” Psychologically speaking, this means being capable enough to shut down parts of your brain or what Dr. Slingerland calls your “cold-cognition” so that thinking does not negatively affect the action-taking that your “hot-cognition” is responsible for in the pursuit of success. If we were conscious of everything that we did, we would not be as successful because it takes the genuineness out of what we are doing, and not being able to embrace the bodily process of learning to be successful.

Rather, most people are still locked up at the lower levels of over-thinking and over-trying (over-consciousness or inability to cope with unachieved goals) that block creativity and spontaneity. Children are a great example as agents of creativity and spontaneity. A child does not think about running for the purpose of losing weight or playing video games for the goal of win or loss. A child simply runs for the sake of running or plays video games for the sake of enjoyment. They lose themselves in the activity more so than being too mentally occupied by the goal they are going to achieve.

This lesson is important to students who are graduating high school and are ready to take on the work of the real world, whether that be in an academic collegiate environment or occupational setting. How creative can you be? How willing to think outside the box can you be, without concentrating so much on what others will criticize you? This is where a majority of the true work lies.

These are the gifts of the innovator that people such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have granted us. Sure they worked their tails off but remember, they also had visions to share and creativity to see ahead of their times.