As a voluntary mother raises a child not for material gain, but because the experience itself is meaningful, a wise person does not live and work in order to accumulate possessions, but will concentrate on the process of living. Being is more important than having. Life is postponed until some later date. An enlightened person, by contrast, is a person who lives in the present. When the world loses the Tao, Cavalry ravages the countryside.
Nothing is worse than the desire to possess.
Therefore contentment with contentment will be contentment. The recommendation to abstain from competition parallels the one to abstain from combative arguments. Being in accord with the Tao will relieve people from the pressure to be better than others, to best them in words and deeds, to prevail at all cost, or to assert one's self by interfering in the natural order of people and things. The idea of laying low, of being passive in important ways, of laissez-faire in almost every respect, is probably the most general theme in the entire Tao Te Ching. Being the river of the world, He has strength that is not cut to pieces.