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In many situations, there is a path of least resistance, a way to slice through smoothly with minimal wasted effort. In Taoism, this is called "Wu Wei, "the "Watercourse Way." There are Zen chefs who are so skillful at cutting with the grain of everything that their knives supposedly never need sharpening. In relationships, you can conserve energy by respecting the I Ching principle of "meeting halfway." You can also apply Meeting halfway to your relationship with the cosmos. If you try something repeatedly and it doesn't work, try something else, as the cosmos didn't meet your efforts halfway. There are many analogues to these principles in the West, such as, "work smarter, not harder" or even "measure twice, cut once," which gives mindfulness precedence over mere action. There is an aesthetically elegant form of efficiency in the design principle: "Form follows function." Aleister Crowley's principles of Magick follow this principle of efficiency. Consider his first two postulates:

I Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.

II. Postulate ANY required Change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner through the proper medium to the proper object.

Notice that efficiently cutting a watermelon meets Crowley's standard of Magick. This is the warrior principle of mindful, efficient action, which has a form-follows-function elegance and simplicity.

Our addictions, habits, and neurotic tendencies can easily be recognized as cross-grained to these principles, as they are energetically inefficient and inelegant, consuming excess resources and with messy, ugly results.

There are some cases where an obstacle is tenacious, and you can't sidestep or slice through it smoothly. Even when we have to confront something like that head-on, there are more and less efficient ways of handling it.

This is an auspicious time to consider where you are slicing through it smoothly and where you are wasting energy.