The excerpt from Chuang Tzu that I liked most came from letter D in the final paragraph. Section D overall discusses the crown prince being given a tutor to help him become a man of virtue. The tutor, struggling to find a way to please the Duke who had given him his task, seeks out assistance and guidance. Through different analogies, Ch’u Po-yu tries to explain to the tutor how they can help the crown prince.
The last analogy about the tiger is the one I want to focus on. Ch’u Po-yu talks about the tiger trainer and how they are successful in taming a tiger. He tells the tutor, “you can train [tigers] to be gentle with their keepers by following along with them. The men who get killed are the ones who go against them” (Chuang Tzu, D). In terms of the tutor, he is telling him not to work against the crown prince because he will get nowhere.
Outside of the story, I think this passage is applicable to life. The overarching message, as I understand it, is that pushing against something will lead to failure rather than going with the flow. This message in Daoism comes up again and again in terms of “the path of least resistance.” While I don’t think this message is necessarily applicable in every sense, I do think in terms of not always pushing oneself it is important.
The same goes for debate and argument. If you are trying to convince someone to see something the way you do, and you only do so by attacking their very understanding of that thing, then they will never go along with you. However, if you follow along their thinking and go from that angle, it could work in your favor to changing their mind.