Surrender is not defeat. It is the recognition that what one has been gripping was never going to yield to grip. In Bhakti it is prapatti — taking refuge. In Sufism it is Fanāʾ — the self’s annihilation in the Beloved. In Christian Mysticism it is the “thy will, not mine.”
What makes surrender different from resignation is the target: surrender gives the weight to something trusted. Resignation lets it fall to the floor.
In Taoism‘s Wu-wei it takes a cooler form — less devotional, more biomechanical — but the core is the same. Stop pulling against the river. The river was always going to win, and was never your enemy.