Giving Up, Letting Go, and Cause and Effect

In response to a comment about the Dalai Lama blog, I thought I'd explain a little more what I meant about 'giving up', 'letting go', and 'cause and effect'.

I used to think that the harder I tried to do something, the easier it would be.
So I thought one must try hard, but really that just makes effort more difficult(like studying for hours without remembering anything, getting frustrated).
When I felt like I was 'giving up', I meant giving up trying so hard, and instead just dropping the load and walking without it--in other words, trusting whatever might happen if I wasn't so 'prepared' for a future I couldn't seem to predict. Time and time again I got disillusioned by my experiences teaching here. Reality just so rarely turned out as I'd planned so, so hard for!! So I gave up stressing myself out about the reality that only existed in my mind. So that's what I meant by 'giving up' before.

At the lecture, again I stopped trying so hard to understand(i.e., I didn't take notes or think too much while the speech was going on). I took it all as it came, moment to moment, even if I didn't understand a word or concept here or there. Afterwards, I came out feeling that I understood some kind of larger picture that the Dalai Lama was painting.
I could relate his discourse on karma(a.k.a 'cause and effect') to my expectations and disillusionment, and opening to the reality of living without knowing the future. That's what I was talking about when I said 'letting go', and how it was a little different from 'giving up'.

When I said 'cause and effect' I meant it literally, i.e., dropping a ball and it hitting the ground, practicing something and getting more skilled at it, or even having an angry feeling and that feeling creating stress, and so on. Usually, science talks about cause and effect in only the physical or chemical senses, but I think Buddhism talks about it in the physical, chemical, perceptual, and subtle(imperceptual) senses too.
As everyone knows, things change constantly, whether the change is visible or not. All those changes are reliant on previously existing conditions. They are dependent on things coming together in a certain way, all dependent on previous states.
Therefore, I said I thought my view of 'cause and effect' had seemed to mature because I felt more that I was living by it. It's awfully relaxing to see things through this view(viewing change and previous conditions as beyond control), and just deal with things when they come up.
Here's my aspiration: not to try to do many things at once, just take care of each thing as it comes up.