Be gentle and soft.
Dao De Jing Chapter 31 continued.
“兵者不祥之器，
Bing Zhe Bu Xiang Zhi Qi:
soldiers are an unlucky tool,
非君子之器，
Fei Jun Zi Zhi Qi:
not the tool of the cultivated person,
不得已而用之，
Bu De yi Er Yong Zhi:
they are only used in desperate situations,
恬淡為上。
Tian Dan Wei Shang:
instead they prize being gentle and soft.”
The Daoist message is that you don't have to go to war to get what you want.
For a person to be cultivated means that they have refined their character through a process of intentional practice.
We mustn't lose sight of the fact that the refined person or Jun Zi is equally important to Laozi as it is to Confucius and that both schools view skillful behavior as superior to rash actions taken only after something is wrong.
Sometimes people's desires are too big so they must fight,
other times they let things get out of control and they have to try their hardest to get things back on track,
and other times bad things happen through no fault of their own.
From the perspective of Daoism it is better to take measures to solve problems which do not result in negative actions.
I haven't found it recently, but I remember seeing a saying that it is better to speak Yang words than Yin words.
What this means is that it is better to try to phrase things in a positive way which can be improved rather than a negative way which can't.
I'm sure we've all met those people who speak pure negativity and think of themselves as straight shooters.
Much of the time we can't say that they don't have a point, but their negativity doesn't help the situation at all.
If you really want to help improve a situation it is better to do it in a way that leads to everyone benefiting.
That is the skillful way to use your words in a Yang way, but it takes time and effort to change.
Daoism is about changing and improving.