Va'eschanan

When Moshe relates the events of Har Sinai, he says that when we heard 'ה giving us the עשרת הדברות, after the second one, we said to Moshe קרב אתה ושמע את כל אשר יאמר ה' ואת תדבר אלינו we don't want to hear it from 'ה, but from you, Moshe.
If you look at the posuk it's worded strangely because it refers to Moshe in the feminine "את".
Rashi comments that the reason for that is because when they didn't want to hear the other 8 commandments from 'ה, they weakened Moshe, for he felt it meant they didn't want to get close to 'ה.
Moshe reasoned, wouldn't it be better to hear straight from 'ה than to hear from an intermediary!?
Interestingly enough, in the very next posuk 'ה says to Moshe, it's good that they wanted to hear it from you & not ME. How do we understand this apparent contradiction?
We could understand it like this. ר 'משה פיינשטיין explains that the difference was that Moshe felt a person should strive to be even more than he could be, to try to go above his capabilities, like it's brought down that a person should say מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי "when am I going to reach the level of my fathers" whether he's capable of it or not.
But 'ה was saying no, I only demand from a person what he is capable of & if the people aren't at that level then its better they don't hear from me. The obvious question is, what's 'ה telling us? Not try hard & not to try to push ourselves to be better? Do we want a complacent nation?
The Rambam (מו"נ ח"ג, נא) writes on the posuk of שמע ישראל, "you should know that the purpose of all these עבודות like Torah & Tefila & all other mitzvos are just to bring us close to 'ה & to clear our mind from the mundane, and think only of 'ה. However if when one prays facing the wall, seemingly engrossed in prayer and his mind is on his business, or while learning just paying lip service, & your heart isn't there, or doing any mitzva with your limbs like you're digging a ditch without any thought, that is not what we were commanded to do". Now says the Rambam, I'm going to tell you how to come to do the mitzvos the right way. First he says, clear your thoughts of the mundane just for the first posuk of שמע, & the first beracha in שמונה עשרה. After you do this regularly & you have this down pat, doing this for many years, then you will begin to be able to learn the torah & put all your thoughts & heart into it slowly, one step at a time.
Maybe this is how we could understand what 'ה is telling us whens he says don't shoot for the stars. He's saying don't try to do it too fast. Don't take on more than you can in one shot. We have to grow slowly, by doing what we're capable of, & then slowly adding on as you reach each level. Then once you accustom yourself to growing it will be as Moshe says, and we'll attain the highest level, learning straight from Hashem!