[Note: I italicize phrases I borrow from the chapter, and link to phrases I borrow from other chapters to help tie chapters together. While making it more tedious to read, the Tao Te Ching is best pondered in the context of the whole.]

Standard translations and the literal Chinese part company toward the end of this chapter. Compare them to the one below. As feeble as my translation may be, at least it follows the literal Chinese more closely - and makes more sense (well... to me anyway). Why do the 'standard' translations occasionally go off on these tangents? I suspect it is due to more than mere poetic license... Hmm, you would think being so out of sync with the experts would concern me. But, this is Taoist stuff... to paraphrase, one who knows does not 'write'; one who 'writes' does not know. So, with that in mind...

The literal Chinese goes like this:
know its male (powerful), defend (observe, abide by) its female, serve as (be, mean) heaven under small stream.
serve as (be, mean) heaven under small stream, always virtue (integrity) not leave,
duplicate (again) return in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) baby.
know its white (pure, clear), defend (observe, abide by, close to) its black, serve as (be, mean) heaven under type (style, pattern)
serve as (be, mean) heaven under type (style, pattern), always virtue (integrity) not error (mistake),
duplicate (again) return in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) without extreme.
know its flourish (honour, glory), defend (observe, abide by) its disgrace (dishonour), serve as (be, mean) heaven under valley.
serve as (be, mean) heaven under valley, always virtue (integrity) be (therefore, only then) foot (sufficient, full),
duplicate (again) return in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) simple (plain).
simple break-up standard (rule) serve as (be) implement (capacity) wise person use of standard be public elder (senior, head).
incident (happening, cause, intentionally, therefore) big make (control, restrict, regulate) not cut-off.

And now my feeble attempt to make the literal readable:
Know its male, observe its female, and be a small stream for all under heaven.
Being a small stream for all under heaven, constant virtue will never leave you,
And you will again return to infancy.
Know its white, observe its black, and be a pattern for all under heaven.
Being a pattern for all under heaven, constant virtue will never be in error,
And you will again return to moderation.
Know its honour, observe its disgrace, and be a valley for all under heaven.
Being a valley for all under heaven, constant virtue will be sufficient,
And you will again return to simplicty.
Simplicity loosens standards and allows a wise person to be a public elder.
This is how even the greatest regulation cuts off nothing.

Also, notice how the literal says 'its male', not 'the male'. 'Its' conveys the mystery better than 'the', don't you think?

Welcome Az, (By the way, I was born and raised in Tucson.)

az:

...Or should this kind of "living" simply be abandoned?

One Taoist 'goal' is to abandon nothing. Our problem with life is really centered around having too many desires. We tend to have to many because our mind's imagination dreams without end. The idea of desiring not to desire can help balance this. It applies to everything, e.g., if you desire to gamble - desire it less; if you desire to save the world - desire that less; and so on across the board.

Nothing, whether "thankfulness" or greediness, possesses more merit than another. Each are simply symptoms of our inner life - feeling "thankful" arises when we feel 'enough; feeling greedy arises when we feel we don't and desire more of whatever it is we feel will bring us contentment. The irony, from a Taoist and Buddhist point of view anyway, is that this actually never brings us contentment. For survival in 'the wild', biology hoodwinks us into feeling 'desire' works. Our problem: We took 'the wild' out of Nature's equation... oops! So, in truth, the only path that works is simply desiring not to be full. And that is a winding road to say the least. But, just so you don't think you're going around in circles, consider this.. If you would have 'desire' weakened, you must first strengthen it.

az:

... I'm still pondering "being disgraced" vs "being humble" . Both are low positions, and there is no judgement assigned to either, are they the same?

In the Taoist view, there is no objective reality in word meaning. Thus we 'listen' to the teaching that uses no words. The actual feeling a word evokes in us reflects who we are, not the ostensible 'thing' the word symbolizes. You can soften the glare of this subjective projection if you can wrap your mind around the correlations process. Here is a very brief example:

Although will always end up going around in circles, of course. The Taoist ideal is to be hesitant, murky, vacant, tentative, and falling apart as much as possible, so as not to fight the circle. By ceasing to 'fight the circle' we are best able to deal with things while they are still nothing. Oh, and just what is this 'circle'? Consider these...

Sure, something and nothing produce each other. So, even these opposites are mysteriously "the same" at the end of the day. When we realize we can't nail 'it' down, the only sane thing to do is stop hammering. However, in order to stop, we must first start. So we are well on our way - hooray! In the end though, this is why one follows the way.

Here are these correlations in a column which may help the reading. All the words in the YIN column share a 'sameness'; all the words in the YANG column share a 'sameness'. Deeper down, these columns share a mysterious sameness. Before we can see that, we must first be able to see sameness in each column. I know these words are not persuasive nor beautiful, but just maybe...

I hope this doesn't seems like I'm giving you the run around on your question. The blunt truth is: illusion = answer. So, how do I answer your question without Answering it?