Lao Tzu argues in the Tao Te Ching that the soft overcomes the hard.
He takes water as a metaphor for this assertion; water is soft and flexible, but also has the power to erode the hardest materials like rock and metal.
I quote: Everyone knows that the soft and yielding overcomes the rigid and hard, but few can put this knowledge into practice. End quote.
So, to be like water, we need to know how we can overcome the hard by being soft. First of all, Taoism is a philosophy about 'not forcing' anything.
In practice, we can see that using force is not only exhausting, it often doesn't get us anywhere.
Now, this doesn't mean that we should never use force in certain situations.
But in many cases, the soft approach is superior to using force, when it comes to long term results, as well as saving our energy, and maintaining a tranquil mind. This mechanism is best explained through examples.
A great example of the power of softness we can find in the movie Shawshank Redemption, in which the protagonist Andy Dufresne is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for murdering his wife and and her lover, even though he keeps saying that he didn't do it.
After 19 years of imprisonment, he escapes and flees to Mexico. Andy uses soft and stealthy methods to reach his goals.
Probably because of his background as a banker, he's able to think long term, and knows that small actions in the present will eventually lead to big changes in the future.
